


take this boat and point it home [we've still got time]

by socallmedaisy



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-16
Updated: 2015-05-12
Packaged: 2018-03-18 05:35:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 57,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3558017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/socallmedaisy/pseuds/socallmedaisy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They’re both broken now, after Finn and Costia, Tondc and the missile, the war, the betrayal, and she wonders if there’s enough pieces left to form a whole.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [steeltraintouch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/steeltraintouch/gifts).



> written pre-2x16, so canon compliant through 2x15 and slightly different thereafter.  
> major thanks to megan for the handholding and helping me figure out all the things that were wrong.
> 
> come yell at me, if you want: socallmedaisy at tumblr dot com

She drops to her knees after it's done, the gun sliding out of her hand like her fingers don’t know how to hold it anymore.

A wave of exhaustion hits her, and there’s a pain in her knee, and her head, and a million other places on her body but she ignores them all and presses the palms of her hands flat against the concrete, holding herself up. It doesn’t feel real, and she tries to ignore the blood on her hands as her vision swims, black spots appearing across the expanse of grey in front of her.

She’s so tired. All she wants to do is sleep.

She shakes her head to clear it but it doesn’t help, and she sways where she kneels for a long moment before everything fades to black.

//

It’s Octavia who finds her, after.

The black on her face is smudged and faded, mixed in with the blood, and Clarke blinks at the way she grips her sword, like they’re still at war.

“Clarke! Are you hurt?”

Octavia’s eyes rake over her, and Clarke shakes her head once, more of a jerk than any kind of signal.

“Help me,” Octavia shouts to no one in particular, then crouches down in front of Clarke and moves to put her hand on Clarke's shoulder.

Clarke jerks away as Octavia's hand comes closer. It’s way too fast, like Octavia is far away and then Clarke blinks and she’s right at her side, and Clarke hates the way her hand twitches for her gun.

"Clarke," Octavia says low and hard. "It's over." Her hand hovers over Clarke's shoulder for a moment before she presses down.

There's a tiny part at the back of her mind that wants to ask why Octavia says it's over instead of we won, but black spots dance across her vision when she opens her mouth.

"Clarke?" Octavia's hand moves up to Clarke's neck, and then the back of her head and Octavia's mouth drops open when she pulls her hand away.

Clarke sees the red on Octavia’s hand but can’t make her brain work out what it means.

"I need help!" Octavia's shouts again, a bit more desperate now, and Clarke sways on her knees. "Clarke, what happened? Are you okay?"

No, Clarke wants to say because she's not sure she ever will be again, but when she opens her mouth the word won't come out.

Her vision swims again, Octavia's concerned face blinking in and out of existence.

She hears heavy footsteps, and then a jumble of words that sound like they're coming from high above her.

"Hold on, Clarke."

It's the last thing she hears before everything goes black.

//

She wakes up in the white room, and wants to scream.

She clenches her jaw and struggles to push herself upright, swinging her feet over the edge and then recoiling at how it makes her vision swim.

She blinks to clear it and then rips the IV out of her arm and stands, bracing herself against the wall with one hand. She’s not ready for the wave of dizziness that hits her, and she wonders how long she’s been in bed.

Everything aches, but it's not the first time and she's sure it won't be the last.

It doesn't matter now anyway, she just needs to get out.

There’s no mirror, but she’s not sure she wants to know how she looks. When she reaches up to touch her head, her fingers hit bandage, and she can tell by the way her shoulder pulls that there’s stitches under the hospital gown she has on. She wonders why the Mountain Men would go to the trouble of patching her up if all they wanted to do was suck out her bone marrow, but she pushes the thought aside as she remembers Octavia saying it was over, not that they'd won.

She crosses the room quickly, a handful of staggering steps until she remembers how her feet work. She presses her face against the window in the door, her hand going down to the handle automatically, just in case whoever is keeping her here forgot to lock it.

The door opens under her touch and she blinks, surprised.

She glances out into the hall but there's no one there, and she's taken half a step out when she realises she doesn't have a weapon. The thought of being defenseless makes her skin crawl, but the idea of going back inside the room is even worse.

She could smash the window again, but she doesn't want the noise to attract any guards.

She swallows hard against the fluttery panicked feeling in her throat and scratches at the place she pulled the IV from.

She can't stay here.

She steps out into the hall, glancing up into the corners in case there are any cameras that would let her enemy know she's out.

The doors to the other rooms stand open and there's no one in them, and she doesn't want to think about where her friends are. She hopes they didn't get Octavia when they got her, and that Bellamy fought his way out somehow.

And Lexa, she thinks before she can stop herself. It hurts more than the pain in her head.

She keeps her head down and heads for the door at the end of the corridor. The door controls have been blown out and there's a keypad wired up to where they used to be. It looks familiar but she doesn't know why, and she stares at it for a long moment before she taps against the keys hesitantly.

Nothing happens, and she pushes the enter key again a little harder.

"Come on," she hisses, and slams her hand against the keypad.

After what feels like forever, the doors finally open and she steps inside the next corridor quickly, her eyes scanning for any sign of danger.

There's a guard in a Mount Weather vest standing with his back to her in the doorway to one of the other medical rooms, and she holds her breath as she moves towards him, eyeing the handgun at his belt. There are voices coming from the room, but she doesn't pause to recognise them, just keeps low as she moves towards him.

She grabs for the gun and pulls it out of his belt before he knows she's there, slamming it into the back of his head as hard as she can so he crumples to the ground.

She steps into the room with the gun raised as everyone starts to shout. It sounds like, "Resistance!" and in the back of her mind she thinks how that means maybe her friends are alive.

"Don't move or I'll shoot," Clarke shouts, eyes darting around the room. There are guns pointing at her from about six different directions and she knows this isn’t going to end well for her.

Still, she’d rather go out like this instead of locked in a cage being drained of her blood.

She brings her right hand up to support the gun as she moves away from the doorway, in case any more guards come down the hall.

"Who's in charge here?" Clarke’s eyes scan the room again and it's only then her brain starts to work. There are men and women dressed like Ark guards, as well as those wearing the Mount Weather uniform. As she scans the faces, she thinks she recognises some of them and she shakes her head, because this can't be what she thinks it is.

"Clarke, it's all right."

She recognises the voice before she turns to look at her and her knees buckle as she fights to stay upright.

"Mom?"

She thinks she knows now why Octavia didn't say they won.

Her mom raises her hands slowly, placating. "Put the gun down, Clarke. No one here is going to hurt you."

Clarke blinks away the tears from her eyes as she points the gun at her, trying not to notice the fresh wounds all over her mom's face. Taking a step forward before she can stop herself, jabbing the gun in her mother’s direction. "What have you done?"

No one moves beyond the guards' uneasy glances.

"What did you do," she screams at her mother. The panic is back in her chest, and she struggles for breath in huge shuddering gasps. "What's going on."

"Clarke," her mom says, eyes searching her face. "It's over, put the gun down."

Clarke doesn't move. Her thoughts race as she tries to work out what happened, what possible reason they could have for staying inside the Mountain with the people who tried to destroy them.

"We've taken the mountain." Her mom speaks quickly, like she's afraid Clarke might do something before she's had time to explain. "We're taking what resources we can. New equipment, weapons. You were hurt, we're in medical." She speaks slowly, like Clarke is a bomb waiting to go off.

Clarke’s hand shakes where she holds the gun.

"Do you remember what happened?"

She remembers fire and blood and pain and betrayal. She remembers people dying all around her as she'd tried to prove she was a leader worth following.

“We won, Clarke. We’re not at war anymore.”

“No,” Clarke shakes her head, feeling her chest tighten again. “No! Why are we here, why was I back in that room, why am— Where are my friends?”

Raven, she thinks desperately. Bellamy. Octavia.

“Clarke put the gun down,” her mom says again. She takes a step closer and Clarke flinches, her finger twitching near the trigger. “It’s okay now, it’s over.”

“No,” Clarke says again, only she’s so focussed on her mom she doesn’t see the woman come up behind her with the syringe until it’s too late.

She feels no pain when the needle pierces her skin, and she lurches as whatever drug they’ve injected into her takes effect. She tries to bring the gun up but there’s no time. The black spots are back, dancing in front of her eyes when she tries to look at her mom.

“No,” Clarke whispers, as she takes a step towards her. “Mom, please.”

The last thing she hears before her vision fades is her mom saying, “It’s okay now, Clarke. I’ll take care of you,” and then she pitches forward and lands in her arms.

//

She wakes up screaming from a dream she doesn’t want to remember, all fire and blood and burning heat against her skin.

There’s the sound of feet pounding against the floor and a door opening, and then someone is holding her feet down as she struggles against them. She kicks and someone grunts in pain, and by the time she gets her eyes open she sees the black guard uniform and struggles harder.

“No, please,” she says, as a doctor in a white coat rushes towards her with another syringe in her hand.

“You need the rest,” the doctor says, gruffly, not looking at her. She feels for a vein with two fingers flat against the crook of Clarke’s elbow and Clarke winces as the needle goes in.

“No, I don’t want to go back,” Clarke tries to say, but it comes out slurred as the drug takes hold.

//

In her dreams, Lexa’s sword dances through the air all deadly grace, slashing at the suits of Mountain Men when she gets in close enough to knock their guns away.

She gets punched and staggers, spitting blood out of her mouth as she launches herself forward again with a battle cry, her people all around her providing defense.

People fall, and blood seeps into the ground.

The Mountain Men offer a deal, and Clarke holds her breath as Lexa grips the hilt of her sword, considering.

In her dreams, Lexa smiles and then Clarke blinks and she’s gone.

//

She comes awake later, feeling like her head has been split in two.

It hurts, and when she tries to bring her hand up to press against it, it doesn't move and it takes her a second to figure out why.

The restraints are tight around her wrists, even with the padding, and when she kicks her legs she feels the same thing around her ankles.

She starts to scream, and doesn't stop when the door bangs open, two doctors rushing in to her.

"Get them off, get them off, get them off," she shouts, thrashing against the bed.

"Clarke, calm down," one of them says, trying to hold her still. It makes her worse, and she pulls at the restraints harder, not caring at the way they bite into her skin.

"Your mother ordered this. You were hurting yourself in your sleep."

"Get them off me," she whispers hoarsely. She sees a thin line of blood seep out from under the padding around her wrist and wonders idly if the thick cloth was added before or after that wound was made for the first time. "Please."

"Doctor's orders," one of them says. Clarke doesn’t think he sounds that sorry. “Your mom told us to keep them on.”

“I won’t do anything,” Clarke whimpers, she tugs her wrists against the bed again. “Just let me go.”

“You’re not a prisoner here, Clarke.”

She thrashes harder.

She doesn’t believe them.

//

She stares at the ceiling, looking for blemishes in all the white. She hasn’t found any yet, but it won’t stop her looking, and at least it keeps her from thinking about her friends.

(She recites their names at night when the nightmares get so bad she can’t sleep.

Bellamy, Raven, Octavia, Jasper, Bellamy, Monty,  Octavia, Harper, Raven, Miller, Le—)

She doesn’t look who it is when the door opens, just waits for whoever it is to pull the seat up and start to speak.

“I’m going to untie you now.”

It’s only because it’s her mom that she looks down. “That’s good of you.”

“You were hurting yourself in your sleep, Clarke. The nightmares and the screaming… I had to stitch your shoulder up five times.”

She swallows hard, refusing to flinch when her mom’s hands reach for the cuffs and slowly start to remove them. It takes everything in her not to pull her hands to her chest as soon as they’re free.

“Where are my friends.”

Her mom sighs and her hands still by Clarke’s feet. “You really think I sold them out, don’t you.”

She doesn’t know what she thinks anymore. She doesn’t know how long she’s been here, strapped to a bed and only released to eat her meals and use the bathroom under the watchful eye of a doctor she doesn’t recognise.

(Maunon, she thinks, the grounder word for the Mountain Men that she has come to translate as enemy. She watches the doctor watch her, and wonders if the grounders have accepted this alliance as easily as she’s expected to.)

“It’s over, Clarke. We won.”

“Then where are my friends,” she spits, rubbing at the wounds on her wrists where the cuffs used to hold her down. Her hands twitch with the need to hit something, and she settles for pushing her knuckles into the mattress instead, twisting her hands down so hard she feels the bed push back against the bones.

Her mind leaps to conclusions she wouldn’t have even considered before the dropship even when they don't make sense. Then again, her mom selling them all out makes about as much sense as her mom keeping her tied to a bed in some remote room in their enemy’s former home.

About as much sense as her mom having her dad floated for daring to tell the truth.

“Bellamy is at Camp Jaha,” her mom pauses a second, like she has doubts about adding the second part, “In charge of the outpost. Raven is... recovering. Octavia is here, but won't speak to anyone except her brother." She has to pause for a second before she can go on and Clarke wonders what she isn’t telling her. "Monty and the others are still here, helping us clean up and repurpose the equipment.”

“I want to see them.”

“You will.”

“You can’t keep me here. I’m not some prisoner you can keep out of sight.” Her voice sounds weak even to her own ears but she pushes on. “I led us here, I want to know what’s happening to my people.”

Her mom scoffs, “You’re not the commander here, Clarke.”

“Neither are you,” Clarke bites back and watches her mom finger the Chancellor’s pin fastened to her jacket with an unreadable expression on her face.

“Maybe not, but I’m the one in charge.” She stands up, collecting together what’s left of the restraints. Clarke watches her silently, her last hope of a weapon disappearing in her mother’s arms.

“And you need to rest.” Her mom’s eyes soften and Clarke looks away angrily, hating the way tears are starting to prick at the corner of her eyes. “You’re still my child, Clarke. You shouldn’t have had to do the things you’ve done.”

Then you shouldn't have sent me down here, she wants to say, but doesn't. After a moment her mom takes a step towards the door and then stills again.

“I hear you shouting in the night.” Clarke clenches her jaw and keeps her silence, blinking furiously against the tears.

Her mom’s voice is quiet when she asks, “What does heda mean?”

Clarke’s vision blurs as the tears start to fall, but she shakes her head.

“If you need someone to talk to, I could—”

“Get out,” Clarke says, grateful that her voice sounds steady when she wasn’t sure it would. She balls her hands into fists at her sides. “Now.”

//

She’s hesitant to call them days because time seems to pass differently now, but she’s slept and woken up three times when they give her a mirror for the first time.

She doesn’t recognise herself at first, and she presses her hand against the glass, wondering why the wild girl staring back at her is copying her movements.

Her hair is shaved close to her head low down on one side where someone has had to cut it away to get to the wound, and the shadows under her eyes look like they’ve been painted there before a battle. She fingers the cuts on her face, at the neat stitches someone obviously took care with, and wants to rip them out so the scar will twist her skin, a harsh reminder of exactly what she’s been through.

She thinks of the pain when she’d used the bunk to tear the stitches from her arm before, how she’d gritted her teeth and tried to ignore it, and how she’d almost welcome it now if only to prove she could still feel something.

She stares for a long time before she puts the mirror down, and when she doctors come to bring her next meal she asks them to take it away.

//

It could be days or weeks or months later when she wakes up and there’s someone sitting in the seat next to her bed, and she tries to scramble backwards, feeling the fresh stitches in her shoulder pulling against her skin.

“Hey, hey, slow down,” the person says, and it takes Clarke several shaky breaths to realise it’s Bellamy.

“It’s okay, Clarke. You’re safe here,” he says, holding his hands up to show he’s unarmed.

“Bellamy, what happened,” Clarke breathes. The fluttery anxiety in her chest fades a little at the sight of him, dressed in the black of the guard. There are a few new cuts fading to scars on his face, and a bruise that starts where his neck meets his shoulder and disappears under his shirt but he’s here and he’s alive, the first person she really trusts since she’s woken up.

She reaches for his hand and grips it hard, feeling the callouses there like proof of what they’ve been through.

“We won,” Bellamy says, with a grim smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “We took the mountain. There were pockets of resistance left, but we’ve swept the place. It’s over, Clarke.”

It’s almost the exact same thing her mom told her, but she starts to believe it when she hears it from him.

“What happened to—”

He swallows and looks away, “How much do you remember?”

“Bellamy,” she says. It sounds like a warning.

He swallows and looks away and it takes him a while to find the words. “We lost people. Some of the guard, some of our friends had already been taken to be used as a cure. Jasper— he didn’t make it, we lost him in the fighting. Monty broke his arm. And Kane took a couple of bullets but managed to stay alive.” He reaches up and tugs his shirt off his shoulder. She takes in the bandage silently. “I got shot, and busted something in my knee."

She closes her eyes and remembers the last time she’d seen Jasper, happy smile on his face as he’d wolfed down a piece of chocolate cake. She blinks the tears from her eyes as she remembers him screaming and alone, a spear sticking out of his chest.

“Octavia?” she manages to choke out, “Raven?”

Bellamy nods but a haunted expression drifts over his face. “Raven is getting better. Slowly. Octavia is... physically she's fine. But the grounders left and no one has heard from Lincoln..." he trails off and swallows.

"Lexa took him," her voice comes out hoarse. "When she left."

He’s a silent for a moment, glancing towards the door of her room where it’s still standing open.

"I know you trusted her, Clarke. We all did."

Her chest gets tight again, and she lets go of his hand to grip the bed instead. Her hand fists in the sheets as she thinks about how Lexa had kissed her one day and betrayed her the next, and she can't help the part of her that wonders if it had all been an act from the start. “Her people would always come before an alliance. I should have known, I should have come up with a better plan.” She just about manages to stop her voice cracking on the last word.

He shakes his head, "You couldn't have seen that coming. None of us could."

She thinks about Lexa telling her about Costia, and about the missile that hit Tondc.

"I could have," she whispers, remembering the way Lexa had looked at her at the end, clinging to the mask of the grounder heda even as her eyes betrayed her.

"It's over, Clarke." Bellamy says again, his voice a little softer than before. “It's done. And we made it.”

It doesn’t make it any easier to breathe, and Clarke tears the sheets away from her body, hating the way they feel all of a sudden, before pulling her knees up against her chest.

“We made it,” she echoes, and tries to believe it.

//

The doctors make a big show of leaving the door open, and she wonders if this is some idea of her mother’s, trying to prove she doesn’t have to be here if she doesn’t want to be.

She paces the corridor sometimes, checking the other rooms over and over again but finding them just as empty as hers, and she wonders where the rest of the wounded are being held if they’re not down here with her.

They bring her food to her on a metal tray, and it’s not long before they start stepping outside while she eats it, seemingly satisfied she’s not going to pick up the knife and try to jab it into a guard’s neck.

She wants to believe the war is over, but she still slips the knife up her sleeve and then hides it under her pillow before the doctors take her trays away, and she falls asleep some nights with her hand wrapped around the handle, just in case.

//

The next time she sees him, Bellamy brings her charcoal and a sketchbook along with his report from Camp Jaha, and she holds them to her tightly, her hands almost shaking at the feel of paper under her skin.

(She pretends not to notice when his stories of things happening at the camp become a bit more formal, a bit more ordered and assessed. She’s not in charge of anyone any more, not while she’s stuck in here.)

The color of the charcoal reminds her of warpaint, and she sketches quickly once he’s told her what’s happening on the ground and left, not thinking about the sweeping lines she’s making and what they might mean.

It’s only when Lexa’s face stares back at her from the page that she remembers standing at the gate to Mount Weather all alone watching Lexa walk away from her. The weight in her chest is back, and she gasps for breath suddenly, clutching at her chest with her left hand as the charcoal falls and smudges into the white sheets.

(She could never let Lexa see her like this, wild and unkempt and broken, locked up in the Mountain Men’s home.

It reminds her of another time that feels impossibly long ago, when she’d allowed herself to cry in her mother’s arms for an all too brief moment before she’d turned back into Clarke kom skaikru and seen the alliance through.)

She sucks in lungfuls of oxygen, only it doesn’t help, and after a moment she knocks the sketchpad to the floor and curls into a ball, pressing the palms of her hands into her eyes so hard she sees stars.

//

When Bellamy comes with his report, she works up the courage to ask him exactly how long it’s been since the battle and he gives her a confused look before he says, “Twenty three days.”

She doesn’t want to believe him because it feels like not enough time and too much all at once, and she scratches at the fading puncture marks at her elbow like a reflex, wondering how many of those days she spent out cold at her mother’s order.

“I’ve got to get out of here,” she says, pacing the length of the room and back again. “I led us into this war and—”

She’s not even sure what the other half of that sentence was going to be—and now I’ve given up, and now I’m broken and hiding in this room—and she’s grateful when he steps in.

“Clarke, no one cares. It’s under control.” She shakes her head, refusing to believe him.

“Take all the time you need,” he says, gripping her arm and trying to find her eyes.

She can’t stand the softness in his expression, and she swallows and looks away. “It’s been long enough, Bellamy. No one else is hiding.”

//

She heads to the dining room like she’s on a scouting mission, keeping to the shadows and ducking backwards around corners when people come her way. She’s realised now that their guards have repurposed the mountain’s equipment, so the people who look like Mount Weather soldiers are really her people, but it doesn’t make it any less jarring when the elevator door opens to three sand colored-uniforms, staring at her in surprise.

There are guns tucked into their belts, and she eyes them nervously as she backs away, swallowing past the lump in her throat.

“I’ll take the stairs,” she mumbles, forcing herself to walk backwards slowly the way she came, feeling like her heart is about to beat its way out of her chest.

She ends up back in the medical block, one hand trembling flat against the wall to hold her up as she squeezes her eyes shut against the memory of sand-coloured soldiers lobbing bombs towards them as pieces of shrapnel fly through the air.

//

She still has the dreams at night, so she starts exploring the Mountain instead of sleeping, ghosting around the corridors silently, avoiding the few people who are actually awake at this hour.

She finds her way to the dorm and spends a long time staring through the window in the door, trying to make out the shapes of her friends’ bodies through the gloom.

She never goes in, but she sits in the hallway across from the door some nights, her back pressed against cold concrete until she’s shivering from the chill, deep in her bones.

She slips away when the lights start to brighten, the sign that the day is about to start, and makes her way back to medical slowly, hardly able to keep her eyes open.

She sleeps for most of the morning before she jerks awake when the doctors bring her food, thinking the metallic clang of the tray hitting the table is some attack she’s not prepared for.

//

She's not the only one who haunts the halls.

She sees Octavia for the first time three nights later, pacing the fifth floor like she's searching for something.

She's still dressed like a grounder, pieces of studded armor over her hands and shoulders, even if the warpaint has been washed away. Clarke sees the sword over her shoulder and wonders how many guards she had to fight off to keep it.

She would have liked to have seen it.

Octavia comes to a stop and stares at her, and Clarke's almost grateful she doesn't say anything because it means she doesn't have to try and find the words for another apology.

After a long moment, Octavia folds her arms across her chest protectively and nods at her.

Clarke nods back and opens her mouth to say something—anything, really, just to fill the silence— but Octavia shakes her head and takes a couple of steps towards her.

"I know," Octavia says. Her voice sounds hoarse like she hasn't used it in a long time.

"I'm glad you're here," Clarke whispers, and watches Octavia's bottom lip tremble for a moment.

When Octavia closes the gap between them, Clarke holds her tighter than she thinks she's ever held anyone, breathing apologies into Octavia's hair.

//

The doctors have been offering her a shower ever since she woke up, and she goes eventually, towel tucked under her arm and a doctor waiting a respectful distance down the hall. The water feels good against her skin, and she stands under it for long moments, wishing it could wash away all the blood that’s on her hands since they came down from the Ark.

She fumbles for the heat control and turns it up, until the water scalds her everywhere it touches, until she’s gasping under the heat and pressing her hands flat against the tiles to keep herself standing.

She tells herself she deserves it, for all the people who’ve died under her orders or because she couldn’t do anything to save them. Tondc, and the people in the Mountain they didn’t get to in time.

Finn.

The water hides her tears, and she’s grateful no one comes to check on her, that she at least gets to do this in private.

When she opens her eyes, she sees the water pooled around her feet as blood and she has to blink several times until it starts to run clear, disappearing down the drain.

//

Sometimes, she dreams of Lexa kissing her again.

Impossibly soft and gentle like that first time, like she was something delicate Lexa wanted to cup in her hands and breathe in slowly, drawing her in until there was no space left between them.

She dreams of tattoos she doesn’t know Lexa has, of warpaint smudged and smeared on skin it was never drawn on, of pressing her fingers into Lexa’s back so hard that Lexa hisses and arches into her, begging for more.

She wakes from these dreams silently, heart pounding in her chest in a completely different way than it does after the dreams about fire and blood, and hating herself even more.

//

Raven is the first one who sees her when she works up the courage to enter the dorm, and she takes three quick steps towards Clarke before stopping dead when Clarke flinches.

She's favoring her leg more than usual, and Clarke tries to ignore the healing cuts and bruises on her face.

“Clarke?” Raven says hesitantly, and then people are turning to look at her and she has to fight hard to stay rooted to the spot. They all look happy to see her, and it makes it harder to face them and not notice the people who are missing.

“Are you okay?” Raven asks, taking another step closer.

“Fine,” Clarke forces herself to say, because all of her people are staring at her and she knows she has to prove to them that she is. “I missed you.” As soon as she says it, she feels how true it is and she takes a step forward, watching the relieved smile appear on Raven’s face.

“You have no idea,” Raven replies, closing the space between them and pulling Clarke into a hug.

She lets herself sink into it for a moment, burying her nose in Raven’s hair as she feels the others crowd around them, Monty at the front with more sadness in his eyes than Clarke ever thought possible, his arm hanging in a sling.

“Welcome back,” he says, offering his hand, and she takes it quickly, gripping a little harder than she has to the same way grounder warriors do, before letting go.

//

Word goes round that she had some awful head injury and she doesn’t correct anyone when they ask her otherwise, because she doesn’t know how to explain that a blow to her head isn’t the only thing wrong.

She doesn’t wear the bandage anymore and her hair is starting to grow back, but that doesn’t mean she’s healed, and she takes in the new scars on the faces of her friends silently, wondering what other wounds they hide.

She feels like there’s a blank space where her heart used to be, because Monty’s broken arm and sad eyes, and Raven’s face full of scars and the way she limps and clutches at her hip when she thinks no one's watching, and the chunk of skin missing from the top of Bellamy’s arm don’t mean anything to her anymore beyond a sort of detached curiosity about the things a person can recover from.

It makes her think about all the things they can’t.

//

She’s eating lunch in the dining hall when she hears the first shot, and she dives to the floor without even thinking about it, using the benches for cover. She still has the knife she was using in her hand, flipping her grip around to hold it like a weapon, and she pulls at those frozen in their seats, trying to get them out of the line of fire.

She hears screams and knows the bullets are finding targets, probably the three guards she knows were in the room on their breaks because that’s who she’d try and take out if she was trying to take the room.

(She hates that she knows that, but—)

“Clarke,” the people around her say, when they realise its her. “What’s going on? What do we do?”

She snaps at them to stay down and find a weapon, searching faces for people she can use.

(She hates that she thinks that, but—)

She’d seen Octavia in line for food earlier, but she knows she won’t always sit down to eat with the people who shy away from her grounder clothes in the halls. She tries to scan the room, but people keep pushing past her to try and get away, and the faces turn into a blur around her, so she has to blink hard and force herself to focus.

Another burst of gunfire and a scream, and Clarke mentally scratches off one of the guards she had in the room with them.

After a moment, two boys she recognises from the dropship duck under a table to get closer to her, crawling down the row. One of them pulls a gun from his belt and hands it to her before she can even ask, and the other has a metal bar from somewhere clutched in his hand.

She doesn't ask for a report but they give her one anyway.

“Resistance,” one of them says quickly, pointing to the far corner of the room. “Two of them with rifles. They look desperate.”

“Can we outflank them,” Clarke asks, even as those she’s pulled down to the floor try to crawl away, using the tables around them as cover. She slides the clip out of the gun and checks it, counts the four bullets quickly before sliding it back in.

There’s a hand on her shoulder, and when she turns around Octavia looks back at her with her sword drawn and fire in her eyes. “Follow me.”

(She doesn’t think she’s ever been so grateful to see someone before, except for those ten seconds by the door to Mount Weather, before Lexa opened her mouth and told her what she’d done.)

Octavia moves without bothering to check they’re following, and Clarke snaps a “Stay here and get people out of the line of fire,” to the boys before she follows. She passes terrified faces as she uses the furniture for cover, adults who came down from the Ark with her mother and Kane and didn’t expect to find a war being fought in their new home.

She hears shots fired from a new position and stops at exactly the same moment Octavia does, both of them getting a little lower to the floor. It’s one of the guards, popping up and trying to return fire. Clarke doesn’t think she’s finding her target, but it’s keeping the attention of the shooters, and she exchanges one quick glance with Octavia before moving on, scrambling up and over a table and back down, the gun clutched tightly in her hand.

She can see them now, their mountain uniforms ripped and torn, their faces pale and desperate. She knows by looking at them that they don’t expect to survive this.

(It’s a look she’s seen before.)

They keep firing, and Clarke keeps moving, taking a breath and sighting down the gun when she thinks she’s close enough. “You take the right,” she says, gesturing with her free hand. "I'll take the left."

Octavia nods and lifts her sword, steadying it as she takes a breath and gets ready to move.

There's some commotion from the door at the other end of the room but Clarke doesn't let it distract her as she steps out of cover and shoots the man on the left's knee, watching him drop down to the floor with a cry. His rifle drops to the ground with a clatter, and she kicks it away as she steps closer to aim a second shot at his head.

He slumps to the ground, and she steps around the widening pool of blood and spins to face the second man.

He’s lying on the floor unable to move as blood drips from the back of his thighs and Octavia’s sword where the blade presses to his throat. Clarke trains her gun on his head and watches him sneer.

There's still noises coming from the opposite end of the hall and after a moment a voice shouts, "Step away from the prisoner. And drop your weapons."

She glances over at the guards, her eyes taking in their weapons, and then turns back to the man in front of her. Octavia waits silently as the man spits blood from his mouth.

"You haven't got the guts," he says, gesturing at the gun Clarke’s pointing at him, and she thinks about how maybe once that might have been true.

“Frag em op,” she says, because she knows Octavia will understand, and Octavia doesn’t even blink before she presses her sword into his skin.

Clarke watches the blood splash on to the floor and the way the light leaves the man’s eyes, and all she can think is that he deserves it for everything his people have done to hers.

The guards behind her start to shout and bring their weapons up before the dead man hits the floor and she just stares at them silently, not listening to what they’re saying.

“Go and check the hallway for more of them,” she says to Octavia and watches her send an uneasy glance at the guards.

“I don’t want to leave you,” she says quietly, and Clarke pushes away the wave of gratitude she feels.

“I know,” she says and meets Octavia’s eyes for a long moment before Octavia turns and heads for the door the Mountain Men came through, sword still in hand.

Clarke watches blood drip from the blade, and takes a deep breath. “Sergeant,” she calls, with a lot more bravado than she feels. “We need to talk about security and why these men were allowed to interrupt our meal.”

Her hand twitches when they move to take the gun but she lets them have it, flexing her empty fingers and feeling them shake now they don’t have anything to hold on to.   

//

One of them puts her in an elevator and enters the code to take her to command, and she manages to stay upright until the door closes and she’s alone before falling back against the wall as her knees buckle.

She slides down until she hits the floor, dropping her head to her knees as the first sob escapes.

She counts six floors, and when the door opens again she’s on her feet, tear stains hastily wiped from her skin.

//

“What the hell were you thinking?” Her mom is as angry as she’s ever seen her, and Clarke wonders idly if she looks the same way when she’s snapping orders at other people.

“I was thinking there were two Mountain Men shooting civilians,” Clarke says, reaching for the anger in the pit of her stomach and cloaking herself in it because she is not going to cry in front of these people. “I was thinking someone had to do something.”

Her mom just stares and eventually she says, “You’re a civilian,” like Clarke hasn’t led an army to war and sacrificed everything to do it.

Clarke scoffs, and she sees all the fight go out of her mother, her posture softening as she hunches over and presses her hands flat against the table in front of her, like if she didn’t she wouldn’t be able to stay on her feet. Clarke pushes away the sympathy that threatens to overwhelm her.

“That might have been true once, but it’s not anymore,” she says instead. “That hasn’t been true since you sent me down here in the dropship.”

“Clarke.” Her mom says it half like a rebuke and half like the words are actually hurting her, and Clarke has to look away, her eyes landing on the tactical maps and screens over on the walls. Someone’s drawn a cross at the foot of the mountain, and she wonders what it signifies beyond marking the place Lexa threw away everything they'd fought for.

“I need to know what’s going on, mom.” She says, eyes still on the map. “I led us here. I came up with the plan and ordered Bellamy to go. I picked up the pieces when it all went to hell. We’re here because of me.” She takes a deep breath. “I’m not going to hide in this mountain anymore.”

Her mom shakes her head, and Clarke wonders just how far she could push her if she really wanted to. She’s not a kid anymore, not by age, and because of the things she’s done, and she doesn’t know how to explain that living in the mountain feels like being trapped back in her cell on the Ark only worse, because now she knows what freedom is.

(Wood, and sky, and—)

“Let me help put the world back together,” she says desperately, because maybe that would start to make up for the things she’s done.

There’s a long pause, and her mom looks right through her when she says, “You’ve done enough, don’t you think?”

//

She doesn’t know who decided that they should, but the people from the dropship left in the Mountain start to bring her reports of what’s going on, what technology Kane and her mother are moving to Camp Jaha and what they’re leaving here, who is staying and who is going, the fact that no one has seen a grounder inside or outside of the Mountain since the war horns sounded and Lexa walked away.

It’s Bellamy who tells her some of the Mountain Men are still alive, the ones that helped him to hide their friends towards the end before the fight started, and that her mother has been spending long nights in one of the labs in Medical asking for volunteers.

“Bellamy, what are you saying,” she asks, because it can’t be what she thinks it is.

“She thinks we have more in common with them that we do with the grounders. And if we’re going to survive down here we need to increase our numbers.” He pauses and runs a hand through his hair as he looks away. “She thinks the grounders might come back, and the alliance is nothing but a memory.”

“And you?”

A ghost of a smile plays on his lips, “I think we’re all grounders now.”

//

That night she dreams she’s strapped to the bed in the white room while her mother stands over her with an impossibly long needle, refusing to meet her eyes.

She wakes up screaming so loudly that it hurts her throat, and when Monty and Harper appear at her side to try and reassure her she scrambles back from their hands so fast she falls out of the bunk, hitting the floor with a thud.

She kicks at Monty when he tries to come closer, and Harper stays back, calling her name over and over and trying to hold her gaze.

It takes her a long moment to come back to herself and when she does she just whispers, “I’m sorry,” and runs until the dorm is far behind her.

She doesn’t know where she is when she stops, and she backs into a corner before she lets herself fall to the floor. Tears sting her eyes, and she wipes them away furiously before balling her hands into fists and punching them against the wall.

It hurts, but not nearly enough, and when she finally stops there’s blood running down her knuckles and dripping onto the floor. She tries to wipe it up with her hands but it smears worse than before, and she kicks her foot against it childishly as she sits there, wishing she knew how to get rid of the stain.

//

She finds Octavia late at night, folded into a corner of the dining hall, hiding in plain sight.

Clarke takes the seat next to her silently and looks at her hands. They don’t  shake anymore when they don’t have a weapon to hold.

Octavia waits, focused and still next to her. It’s something she learnt from the grounders, and Clarke envies the way she blends into the darkness and wishes she could blend into hers.

“We can’t stay here much longer,” Clarke says eventually, thinking of her mom and the rumors people bring her, of all the things they’ve had to do to get to this point and how her mom seems to intent on throwing that away.

(She thinks of the woods, and sky, and—)

“I know.” Octavia finally turns to look at her, and Clarke takes in the scars fading into her skin. “We’re all with you, when you’re ready.”

“Soon,” Clarke whispers, and starts to believe it.

//

Lincoln arrives draped over the back of the horse Lexa had given Clarke three days later, feet and hands tied to the saddle. He’s battered and bloody, and when they untie the ropes he falls from the saddle with a sick thump, Octavia crying out as Bellamy holds her back.

Clarke’s the first one by his side, and he opens the eye that isn’t swollen shut slowly, blinking at her groggily.

“You’re safe now,” she assures him, as Octavia crouches down next to them, reaching for Lincoln’s hands.

Clarke watches a smile creep onto his battered face as he looks at Octavia and has to look away, but she still hears him whisper, “Yes.”

//

Her mother won’t let her be there when they question Lincoln, but Bellamy’s in charge of the guard left at Camp Jaha and she can’t keep him out.

Besides, after everything that happened, there isn’t a place in this mountain that he doesn’t know how to get to if he really wanted to.

“He didn’t tell her anything,” Bellamy tells her, later, when they’re huddled together with Raven on her bunk in the dorm, Monty and Monroe listening intently from the next bunk over. “Octavia only saw him for a second before they took him to medical, but she says he’s waiting to report to you.”

She nods, mind racing, wondering if Lexa sent him or if he managed to escape from whatever it was they were going to do to him, and if it’s the first she wonders what disaster could possibly have let Lexa pardon him and send him to her.

(She remembers Gustus tied to a tree, and the look in Lexa’s eyes before she’d slid her sword into his chest.)

“Octavia’s been keeping a watch on the guards, and she thinks we could get in to see him if we timed it right,” Raven says, glancing around to make sure no one is listening to them.

Bellamy nods next to her. “We go at night. They lock the door and don’t bother to leave a guard.”

“They think the war’s over,” Clarke says, and watches her friends meet her eyes grimly.

There isn’t one of them who believes it, and she thinks back to the day they found themselves together, strapped into a ship hurtling towards a planet that’s turned them into this.

“So what’s the plan?” Monty asks, and Clarke waits while all eyes turn to her.

She remembers explaining the last plan she had in a tent while hardened warriors listened intently to her words, Lexa at her back daring them to disagree with her, and she looks around at her friends, at the people the ground has turned them into.

She lifts her head a little, meeting their eyes. “Here’s what we’re gonna do.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

She keeps her head up and her back straight while she leads her army back to their camp in the ruins of Tondc, and her voice is steady when she dismisses her attendants and accepts her people's thanks for saving them.

It's not until she's alone in her tent that she crumples in on herself, wrapping her arms around her stomach as the first sobs shake her body. She feels like she can’t breathe, and she fumbles with the straps of her coat and armor like it’s that that’s constricting her, trying to get it off. It doesn’t help, and she throws her coat across the tent angrily, watching it fall on the map and knock over some of the models.

She kicks at them where they fall on the floor, hating the way the tears burn her eyes.

She hasn’t cried like this since Costia, and she’d told herself then that she never would again.

 _I did what I had to to_.

It doesn’t stop the tears or help her feel like she’ll ever be able to breathe normally again.

“I saved my— p-people,” she forces herself to whisper, like saying it out loud might make it real. She hates the way her voice shakes on each word, the hitches and stutters as she forces the words out.  

“We won,” she chokes out, in English this time, like that might make a difference.

She thinks of Clarke’s face and doesn’t believe it.

//

She comes awake slowly in the morning, still fully dressed apart from her coat, which lies over the map of her territory, marking the spot where she’d seen Clarke’s heart break. Her eyes are sore, and her shoulder hurts where one of the Maunon’s bullets grazed her.

It had still been oozing with blood when she went to sleep, but she hadn’t been able to find it within her to care. She swipes her fingers against the half formed scab vindictively, and watches the blood seep out again.

She pushes herself up and wipes her hands against her eyes, pressing her fingers against the lids as if that might help, and when she stops there’s the smear of warpaint on her fingers, covering up the blood.

She stares at her hands. She thinks about them ghosting across Clarke's skin and tracing the muscles underneath, instead of gripping the hilt of a sword and ending up like this.

Her fingers tremble, and she reaches down to tighten the belt at her waist, just to give them something to do.

She washes her warpaint off in the bowl next to her bed slowly, watching the black be replaced by the red around her eyes in the shard of mirror propped up next to her. The black swirls into the water and she resists the childish urge to splash her hand through it.

She stares for a long time, at the puffy skin around her eyes, and the spiderweb tracery of old scars everyone else has forgotten from when she was a little girl running through the trees without the weight of the Commander’s spirit inside her. She’d been clumsy then, using a bent stick as a sword when she fought the other children, always coming back to her village with some new wound to show her mother.

Now she comes back from battle with wounds she shows no one.

She reaches for the pot of paint and dips her fingers into it, then draws the ink across her skin slowly, covering it all up. When she’s done, the Commander stares back at her in the mirror, face blank beneath the mask of warpaint.

It’s only the pain in her eyes that gives her away.

She crosses the tent in three quick strides, reaching for her coat and pulling it on as she goes, and her eyes linger on the model of the mountain as her fingers fumble with the buckles. She keeps trying, and then stops as her hands shake, and she balls them into fists and screws her eyes shut, waiting for the weakness to pass.

She thinks of her people she saved from the mountain, and her hands still.

//

She pushes through the tent flap roughly once her armor is in place, nodding at the two warriors who flank it.

“Report,” she snaps in trigedasleng, “what news from the Mountain?”

They exchange a look, and Lexa grips the hilt of the knife tucked into her belt, silently daring one of them to speak.

“We kept no watch on the Mountain, Heda,” one of them says eventually. “You gave no orders last night.”

She twists her hand around the hilt of her knife as she stares at them, and she feels the satisfaction of seeing them wilt under her gaze. “Get Indra. Tell her to take a scouting party to the Mountain and see what became of the sky people.”

“Yes, Heda.”

An image of Clarke’s body lying broken and bloodied somewhere among the rocks springs into her head, and she pushes it away as she watches them leave. She tells herself that if they find anything she'll mourn Clarke with the rest of her people, even as her knuckles turn white around the hilt of the knife from the force of her grip.

And if they don't find anything, she'll send them out again.

//

She forces herself to visit the worst ruins from the missile while she waits for them to return, taking in the injured people in the healers' tent before she stands atop the crater and stares down at the rubble where the brick and concrete used to stand.

"Have you come to help us, Heda?" an older woman asks as she moves a piece of rubble into a cart near to where Lexa's standing.

A man next to the woman tries to shush her, tries to tell her that the Heda has better things to do, but Lexa has already started to reach for the fastens on her coat.

"Yes," Lexa says, "I will help."

She throws off her shoulder piece and sword, and then the coat, tossing them aside and not bothering to look where they land. She sees one of the men she’d brought with her— _Cedrik_ , she thinks, _Gustus’ second_ —bend down to pick up her sword out of the corner of her eye, but she walks away from him before he can say whatever it is he wants to stay.

Her people need help, and she will give it to them.

The villagers either side of her look shocked when she joins the train of people passing rubble down the line but no one says anything and she throws herself into the work, grateful for something to concentrate on that allows her to turn her mind off. She moves the rocks mechanically, missing out the older woman next to her when one is particularly heavy, passing it to the man behind instead.

“Beja, Heda,” the woman whispers when she passes Lexa a cup of water, later.

Lexa doesn’t drink before handing it off to the person next to her.

//

It could be hours or days later when Cedrik calls down, "Heda, the scouts are back," and she comes back to herself, feeling the ache in her muscles and sweat on her brow. She blinks and sees the space they've cleared together, the way the train of villagers now stretches down inside the building and underground.

The dust they’re all covered in helps to cover up the rust of old blood on her hands.

There's movement in the darkness, and she ignores her warrior’s shout to watch a man stagger out of the ruins with another man's broken body held in his arms.

He clutches the dead man to him, his face a mask of grief, and Lexa forces herself to stand and watch as he comes towards her. No one speaks, and she steps out of the line to intercept the villager, waiting for him to stop in front of her.

“My brother,” the man says, and Lexa has to look away from the tears rolling down his face.

“Your fight is over,” she says, laying a hand on the dead man’s brow. The villagers around her murmur the words back, and she waits for them to stop before she says, “His sacrifice will be not be forgotten.”

She knows they’re the words she has to say, but they feel empty in her mouth. Like she’s an imposter that these people have come to trust and any second now they’ll discover how wrong they were.

The man says, “Thank you, Heda,” and she hates herself even more.

She swallows and looks up at her attendants on the crest of the hill. “I will hear the scout reports now.”

She climbs out of the crater slowly, aware that all eyes are on her, and she throws her coat back on and keeps her hands still enough to snap the buckles into place. It seems to take a long time, but the villagers don’t go back to work, and when she’s done they all press their hands to their chests in a silent symbol of thanks before she turns and walks away.

She keeps her head up as she walks back to her tent, and tries to imagine her face is chiselled from the stone her people are moving. She’s not sure it works, and she sweeps past Indra at the tent entrance and snaps, “Report,” without waiting to see if the other woman follows her.

She doesn’t turn around when Indra enters the tent, just stands as straight as she can and waits.

A Commander is never afraid, but Lexa still has to work hard to keep her breathing even.

“The sun was high by the time we got to their camps. We searched the dropship and Camp Jaha,” the English words sit uneasily among their native tongue, “ and around the Mountain door.“ Indra pauses for a second before she goes on and Lexa resists the urge to tell her to hurry up. “The skaikru are gone. And the Mountain door is shut.”

Lexa feels the same way she did when she used to train with Anya and left herself open to blows she should have seen coming.

“Did you find—” Lexa swallows Clarke’s name as her voice threatens to crack. “Were there bodies?”

“No, Heda,” Indra says behind her. “There was only this.”

When Lexa finally turns around, Indra’s eyes are fixed on the far side of the tent, purposefully looking away, her hand outstretched towards Lexa, offering the item to her.

Lexa recognises it at once because she remembers pulling it on to Clarke’s hand on a morning that seems to belong to another lifetime. Clarke had asked if she’d lost a lot of warriors to hand wounds as she’d looked at it doubtfully and Lexa’s fingers had lingered over Clarke’s when she’d told her not to mock things she didn’t understand. Clarke had just fixed her with a look and flexed her fingers, and then wordlessly held out her right hand for the other one.

Lexa’s hand is already halfway to the glove before she realises what she’s doing, and her fingers hover over it uncertainly, betraying her weakness.  

“I believe she is inside the Mountain,” Indra says, when Lexa finally takes the glove from her with a hand she has to fight to hold steady. Lexa doesn’t bother to wonder how Indra knows who it belonged to. “We cannot help them now.”

“Victory is built on sacrifice,” Lexa forces herself to say, and then lifts her chin to meet Indra’s gaze. She sees a ghost of her pain in Indra’s eyes, and wonders what happened to Octavia in the tunnels.

“It is, Heda,” Indra agrees evenly. She looks to the tent flap and then takes a step towards it, and Lexa wonders if she assumes she’s been dismissed or if she just needs to get away.

“I hope they die well.” She almost doesn’t say it, but it stops Indra in her tracks, and Lexa watches her back straighten before she speaks.

“Our sacrifice is that we’ll never know,” Indra says, and then disappears through the tent flap without another word.

//

She dreams that she went back for Clarke.

Her army takes the gate and fights up the levels, killing every Maunon they see. And when they take the floor where Clarke is, Lexa throws her knife so hard it rips through the throat of the man aiming his gun at Clarke’s bloodied face, and it mends some of the heartbreak in Clarke’s eyes when Lexa gets to her side and faces the next onslaught with her.

They cut down everyone in their path, and when it’s done she peels the gloves off of Clarke’s hands and kisses the skin underneath, calloused but whole, hard but warm, and Clarke lets her.

She wakes up in the morning with Clarke’s glove clutched in her hand, and she presses it to her mouth, the metal studs cutting into her lips, to try and muffle the sobs.

//

It is surprisingly easy for her to spend most of her time in her tent when they’re not at war, especially when nothing moves around the Mountain and the skaikru camps are abandoned.

(She tells her scouts to keep a watch, just in case.)

She stares at maps of the Mountain long into the night, moving the parts representing her army from place to place, cradling the flag that represents the skaikru in her hand.

In the mornings, the Mountain still stands and her armies are back where they started, or scattered on the ground where she’s thrown them, or clustered around the door to the Mountain they have no way of opening.

She carries the skaikru flag—Clarke’s flag—around with her during the days like a wound, and tells no one.

//

It’s been four nights without sleep when she wipes the warpaint from her eyes and dresses in the rags she’d worn to interrogate Kane and Jaha and ducks out of her tent and into the night. She just needs to get away from her tent and the map, needs to be able to move around without the eyes of her people following her wherever she goes.

It feels easier to breathe when she takes the armor off.

She keeps to the shadows and no one recognises the broken creature limping down the pathways between the ruins of buildings as the Commander who’d saved all of their people from the Mountain.

No one recognises her as the girl Lexa had once been either, and she imagines the path that girl could have taken to end up as this young woman, hobbling through a ruined village in the night.

None of them end much better than the one she’s currently walking.

The smell of burning flesh reaches her and she realises her feet have brought her to the Markers' tents, and she swallows thickly to try and get the taste out of her mouth, seeing the fires up ahead.

There are three women and two men waiting their turn, and they laugh good-naturedly when the Marker presses the tip of the thin metal bar to their friend’s shoulder and he hisses as the brand marks his skin.

“Good boy, Jak,” one of the women calls lazily, and Lexa can tell by the way she looks at him that they belong to each other.

She leans back into the shadows cast by the building behind her, and pulls the rags further over her face.  

Jak curses as he stands up and stretches his shoulder, and Lexa counts three fresh marks on his skin. He strides over to the woman with a happy smile on his face, and leans down to kiss her fiercely, gripping her with his unmarked arm. Lexa can’t bring herself to look away from them, at the way she grips his waist and he pulls her closer so there’s no space between them, and at the way their friends scrunch their faces up in fake-disgust and then laugh when they break apart.

They all look so young even though they’re much older than her.

“Now Sera gets five,” Jak says proudly, once he’s her go. “She killed five Maunon before the Commander freed our people!”

Their friends cheer, and Sera pushes herself up on her tiptoes to kiss him again before she follows the Marker over to the post and turns to face it. She pulls her shirt down until her shoulder is exposed, and then braces her hands against the wood.

Lexa watches as Sera bites her lip as the metal touches her skin for the first time but she doesn’t cry out, just stands there and takes it, and the second one, while Jak shouts words of encouragement behind her.

Lexa knows there are leather straps on all the Markers’ posts, for if someone needs to be held down to keep going. She’d seen a man get twelve in one go once when she was younger, and have to be tied down for the last three. He’d been shamed afterwards, and Anya had leaned down to whisper, “A true warrior can always master her pain,” before she led her away.

She looks at Sera glancing over her shoulder at Jak and watches them nod to each other, drawing what strength they can. She knows Sera will not need the straps.

Sera says nothing until the fourth mark, when she whimpers so quietly Lexa thinks she’s imagined it, and then she cries out when the metal touches her for the fifth time, her whole back going stiff as she fights to stay still.

“My woman,” Jak says proudly to the men and women next to him, once Sera has wiped the tears from her eyes and turned back around to face him, and Lexa gets one look at the welts on her shoulder, the skin broken and angry, before she falls into his arms.

She retreats before they realise she’s been watching them, lifting her hand to trace the mark on her chest through the rough fabric clothes she wears.

She thinks about going back to the Markers’ tents and demanding they brand her, like maybe if the pain she felt on her skin matched the pain she felt inside it would be easier for her to go back to being the Commander.

She had killed them, after all.

She doesn’t know how many marks that would take, but she remembers how much the burn she’d given herself after Costia had hurt, and she thinks they might kill her first.

//

Indra gives her six nights to grieve, and then she comes with questions Lexa doesn’t want to answer.

“Heda,” Indra says, like she’s trying to remind Lexa who she is, and Lexa feels a wave of irritation go through her. As if she could ever forget. “The scouts report nothing new, how long do you want them to watch the Mountain?”

“Until I tell them not to,” Lexa snaps, pacing the length of the map of the Mountain and back again. “We have no guarantees the Maunon will not come for us again.”

 _With Clarke’s blood_ , she adds silently, and swallows.

Indra inclines her head, “You are right, of course, Heda.” She’s silent for a moment, and when she speaks again her voice is hesitant. “There are murmurs from those who say we should have honoured the alliance with the sky people. They say the Mountain will come for us stronger than before. They say we could have beaten them.”

Indra hadn’t asked her a question, but she answers it anyway, gripping the hilt of her knife as she paces.

“The Maunon gave us our people back without further bloodshed. I had to take the deal.” Indra nods again, but Lexa can tell from the look on her face she isn’t going to accept that.

“And did they say they would leave us in peace?”

Lexa clenches her jaw. “Indra, you forget yourself.”

“With the weapons they have—” Indra goes on stubbornly, only stopping when Lexa slams her hands down on the table.

“With the weapons they could have had behind that door they could have wiped us all out. They told me to take my people and leave the door. They told me that if I did, they would not take our people again. I did what they asked. We are alive because of me. Our people are back because of me.” She has to turn away to regain control of herself, and she presses her hands flat against the map while she forces herself to breathe evenly.

T _he sky people are dead because of me_ , she thinks, and presses harder with her hands. Clarke’s flag cuts into her palm.

“And if they come for us again?” Indra asks behind her.

“And if they come for us again the twelve clans will fight them.” Lexa huffs out a breath, half sigh, half growl. “What else can we do?”

“We could leave,” Indra speaks quickly, like she thinks Lexa might cut her off again. “Tondc is in ruins, and we could consolidate the alliance with the other clans if we went to Polis.”

“Trigedakru do not run away from a fight, Indra,” she says, though it’s not exactly what she means.

“We can’t defend this position, Heda. It would be the smarter tactical decision to withdraw.”

Lexa says nothing, just stares at the map in front of her, looking for a way out that doesn’t exist. Her fingers curl around the skaikru flag under her hand.

Indra just waits, and eventually Lexa sighs out, “I will think about it. Keep the watch posted on the Mountain for now.”

“Yes, Heda.”

Indra still doesn’t move and Lexa can’t keep the growl out of her voice when she says, “Is there something else?”

She thinks she actually sees Indra swallow, and Lexa can’t imagine what she has to ask that would make her so nervous. “Lincoln. He’s still our prisoner. By the laws of our people, he has betrayed us twice.”

A dull pain stabs at Lexa’s temples but she nods, just once, so Indra will know she heard her.

She stays where she is as Indra stalks out of the tent, and waits for the piece of leather over the doorway to fall back down before she lets out the shaky breath she didn’t realise she’d been holding.

//

She is not the first one to visit Lincoln in the caved in section of tunnel, and she takes in the fresh blood on his face impassively when he kneels before her, waiting until his eyes meet hers. Indra and Cedrik flank her silently, Indra’s hand on her sword.

“You are accused of betraying your people, Lincoln,” Lexa says, when she’s sure he is paying attention. “What do you have to say?”

He coughs, and she hears the breath rattle in his lungs. “If you wanted to kill me, you should have left me there and let me fight by their side.” Lexa can feel the anger radiating off him, and she almost takes a step back when he spits blood on to the floor by her feet.

Indra’s sword is halfway out of its scabbard before anyone else moves, and Lexa throws out a hand to stop her. “You refused orders, my orders, and you know our laws.”

Lincoln just huffs out something that isn’t quite a laugh.

“You earned back my trust just to throw it in my face.”

Lincoln lifts his battered face so he can look her in the eye. “You left them to die,” he says fiercely, “when we could have fought the enemy together.”

“Enough,” Indra hisses, taking a step forward. Her hand twists around the hilt of her sword, and Lexa shakes her head once, hardly a signal.

“Don’t you get it,” Lincoln coughs, and it sounds wet in his chest. “We were all grounders,” he spits the skaikru word at her like an insult, “we had the ground. And you gave it to the Mountain.”

She hits him because she has to, and she sees a smirk of satisfaction cross Indra’s face. She waits for him to get back to his knees and then hits him again, feeling the impact where her knuckles connect with his jaw all the way up her arm.

She takes no satisfaction from it, feeling like she’s far away as she watches him sway on his knees and then look up to meet her eyes again, searching for something. “Has anyone heard from Octav—”

This time it’s Indra that hits him, and Lexa looks away while Lincoln gets back up.

“They are dead, Lincoln,” she says, because she doesn’t think she can say their names and keep her voice steady.

She watches him slump forward like he’s been hit again, all the fight going out of him instantly. Indra grips her sword and looks away, but after a moment Cedrik inclines his head and murmurs something Lexa doesn’t want to hear.

“Then kill me too, and end this once and for all,” Lincoln begs hoarsely, and she swallows because she knows that she can’t.

He’s the only one who feels the pain of what she did as deeply as she does herself.

“No,” Lexa says and then waves her hand to silence Indra when she starts to protest.

She knows his punishment will be worse.

She bends down next to him, resisting the urge to place a hand on his shoulder to steady herself. She doesn’t deserve the comfort, and she holds herself stiffly, her lips next to his ear. “You and I will live and remember them,” she tells him quietly, “and that will hurt more than if I killed you today.”

She remembers another night, when she’d said something similar to Clarke, and has to clench her jaw to keep it from trembling. After Costia, she’d learned how to wield mercy like a weapon, and she knows no one else will ever understand how much it costs her.

“He will stay here until I decide what to do with him. He is not to be beaten anymore,” she tells Cedrik and Indra as she straightens up, and waits until they both nod. It takes Indra longer than Cedrik.

“Yes, Heda.”

She spares Lincoln one more glance before she leaves. He still kneels with his head bowed, trying to hide the tears that are running freely down his face. He looks more broken now than when she first arrived, and she swallows the words she wishes she could say as she climbs unsteadily back towards the light.

//

She dresses in her disguise and walks the streets of Tondc at night, skipping around the edges of fires and avoiding the sound of voices. She carries the skaikru flag from her map in her hand, clasped tight so no one can see it.

She lurks at the edge of meeting places and listens to the conversations swirl around her, friends boasting of things they did in the battle, or lovers trying to hide their desire in the shadows, clutching each other close.

She hears the hushed voices of men and women asking each other about the skaikru the same way children ask about Reapers and the beasts lurking in the woods before bedtime, like they aren’t quite real, and they don’t want to know the answer.

“Do you think they survived?” she hears one woman ask, and watches the man next to her shrug. He is still pale in the firelight where the Maunon drained him of his blood.

“One of them freed me from my cage,” he answers after a moment. “I wish we could free them from theirs.”

“Blood must have blood,” the woman replies. “The Commander will avenge them, if she can.”

The man scoffs but says nothing, and Lexa lingers to hear what he will say next.

“The Commander left me to die in that cage,” he says, though there is no anger in his voice. “She will do the same to the skaikru.”

The woman shrugs uncomfortably and looks away, and Lexa wishes she could step forward and throw off her rags and confront them. She wishes she could justify her actions, and make them pay for doubting her. She wishes she could cut into their throats with the blade of her sword and watch them beg for mercy as the light left their eyes.

She runs instead, back to her tent, and her armor and her warpaint, and tries to pretend she never heard them.

//

She gives up staring at her maps at night, and stares into the fire in her brazier instead, daring herself to pull the burning sticks out as she rolls Clarke’s flag around in her hand.

She’d crouched here before, after Costia, willing herself to press the burning wood to her skin, and she fingers the old scar through her shirt with her free hand, pressing her palm down until she feels the heartbeat underneath.

She hates the way it thuds under her fingers like an accusation, and she holds her hand over the flames instead, long past the point where it starts to hurt, clenching her jaw against the pain.

//

She knows Cedrik reports her movements to Indra, so she doesn’t tell him where they’re going until they get there, the smell of burning flesh hanging in the air.

He looks around in confusion, and follows her to the Chief Marker’s hut, the hand twitching for his sword betraying his unease.

The Marker stands when she enters, and she forces herself to stand straight under his gaze. “I wish to be marked for the skaikru lives lost inside the Mountain.”

Cedrik’s eyes widen, but he says nothing, and she wonders how long it will be before he finds a way to get Indra to come and talk her out of this.

The Marker looks at her appraisingly and then seems to realise what he’s doing. He looks down to the floor instead and nods, as if this is a normal request. “How many, Heda.”

 _All of them_ , she wants to say, but what comes out is, “Forty-seven”

She remembers Clarke spitting the number out when they’d been planning the rescue mission together, enough times that it had settled into her memory. It had made it easier to trade their lives for those of her people when the number of them was so much higher.

Cedrik opens his mouth to say something but she turns to glare at him until he shuts it. He looks to the door like he’s thinking about leaving, but she knows he won’t. Gustus trained him better than that.

“I want this done now.” She puts the snap of command in it and watches the Marker swallow. She wonders if he thinks she doesn’t what what she’s asking for.

She doesn’t know how to explain to him that she does.

“Yes, Heda,” he says eventually, “I will attend to the fires.”

“Heda, you can’t be serious,” Cedrik says, as soon as they’re alone. “No one is marked that many times.”

 _I am_ , she thinks, remembering the missile, and Costia, and Clarke’s face at the Mountain door.

She says nothing, and strides back outside into the sunshine. There are people all around, at the other stalls and houses, rebuilding or trading what little they have left, and she stands still, waiting for them to notice her.

They always do.

“Heda, please,” Cedrik says from behind her.

“People of Tondc. The skaikru were our allies. And the price for saving ourselves was leaving them inside the Mountain,” she begins, when enough eyes are on her. A few more people turn to look at the sound of her voice, and she waits for them to come closer, unbuckling her armor as she talks.

She watches them glance at each other uneasily.

“Blood must have blood,” she breathes the words, remembering the last time she’d said them, Clarke’s voice in her ear. “They held forty-seven sky people inside the Mountain.” She pauses as she tosses her weapons away. Cedrik scrambles to pick them up. “I will be marked forty-seven times to honour their sacrifice.”

There’s dead silence and then everyone starts talking at once, the buzz of the crowd almost drowning out Cedrik’s voice.

“Heda, you cannot do this, let me get Indra and—”

“Enough, Cedrik. It is done.” She doesn’t falter as she moves to the post and turns to face it, pulling her shirt up until it bunches around her neck. The sun is warm on her back, and she swallows, thinking about how that warmth will soon turn to pain.

The Marker holds the metal rod in a gloved hand, waiting for her command.

“With blood, we honour them,” she says, finding the words from somewhere. She hears the crowd echo it back to her, a low rumble of hushed whispers.

The Marker steps closer, and she sees his eyes flick up to the leather straps and back down to her again, like he’s asking a question. She feels very young when she grits her teeth and shakes her head just once, enough for him to see.

 _A true warrior can always master her pain_.

It hurts just like she knew it would. The rod is no bigger than the tip of her smallest finger, but it feels much bigger each time it touches her, and the pain builds until it feels like some wild beast from the forest is clawing at her skin.

Her knees want to buckle, but she doesn’t let them.

The Marker presses the rod to her skin methodically, and she tries not to listen to the sound it makes as her skin burns. It makes no sense, but she thinks the smell is filling up her throat and suffocating her.

It hurts every time she inhales.

She almost loses count at thirteen, her vision swimming from the tears threatening to spill from her eyes. She bites her lip so hard she draws blood, and she tastes it in her mouth and wishes she could spit it out.

She can’t hear the crowd anymore, just the sound of burning skin with each new press of the rod.

At eighteen, the Marker pulls a new rod from the fire and she nearly screams out at the white hot press of it against her back. A wave of dizziness passes through her, but she manages to stay on her feet.

At twenty, her ragged breathing is the only thing she can hear, shallow and reedy in time with the beat of her heart.

She closes her eyes at twenty-four and opens them at thirty-two to Indra staring at her, her mouth hanging open in disbelief. She has to close her eyes again.

Her world focuses to the tip of the Marker’s brand and the slow press against her skin, and she wonders if her tears are washing the warpaint away. She wonders if her people will think less of her if it does.

It stops hurting at thirty-eight, her body shutting down to protect herself from the pain, but her thoughts don’t turn off, and she thinks about Clarke’s lifeforce slowly being extracted from her body, and wonders if it hurt as much as this.

“Forty-seven,” the Marker whispers when it’s done, and Lexa remembers nothing more.

//

She dreams of fire and pain and blood.

Her skin burns, and she wonders if this is what those who died in the missile strike felt like.

Hands hold her down when she tries to move, and she wonders if this is what those who die in the Mountain feel like.

She dreams of Clarke.

Clarke pressing her fingers into her wounds, and Lexa screaming from the pain of it, moaning Clarke’s name.

Clarke kissing her mouth, and cradling the back of her head, and whispering to her to hold on.

//

“How many nights has it been?” she croaks when she comes awake, the furs on her bed nearly muffling the words. She swallows awkwardly, her throat as dry as the forest floor in the summer.

“Four.” It’s Nyko’s voice, but she can hear two sets of feet on the floor.

She blinks slowly and turns her head, and Indra’s face swims into view. She’s never seen that expression on her face before.

“Why did you do this?” Indra asks. Lexa expects her to be angry, and the softness of her voice hurts Lexa almost as much as the Marker’s brand.

 _Because I killed them all_ , she thinks but can’t make herself say the words.

She coughs instead, and fire shoots up her back again, making her cry out. Nyko gets up to find some sort of poultice, and she waits until he’s come back with it and pressed it to her wounds before she speaks again. It hurts where it touches her skin, but she doesn’t have the energy to pull away.

“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” Lexa forces out, and then clenches her jaw to keep herself from shouting as Nyko presses again. She knows it’s no kind of answer, but she doesn’t have to explain herself to them, even if she could find the words.

Black spots dance before her eyes, and before she gives in to them she thinks she hears Indra murmur, “You were strong enough.”

//

It’s another three nights before she forces herself to stand, and another two before she can hobble about her tent without wincing.

Warriors are supposed to be marked on their shoulders, but hers spill down her back, coming to a stop somewhere beyond the bottoms of her shoulder blades. The bandages Nyko makes her wear feel like armor wrapped tight around her body. They might be the only thing holding her together.

She refuses to look at her back in the mirror, but she looks at Nyko’s face when he studies her and gets an idea of how bad it is.

“The wounds are not infected, Heda,” he tells her, while she sits as straight as she can and tries not to shy away from his fingers. “They will heal.”

She hopes she will too.

//

Her scouts tell her they’ve seen movement at the skaikru camp, and she throws on her coat and armor and goes without thinking about it, ignoring the way the leather rubs against the wounds on her back with each faltering step she takes.

She’s not sure what she expects to find but she knows she has to go, and she grits her teeth against the pain and waves away Cedrik’s protests as he trails after her.

It takes her far too long to get to the edge of the woods, and she crouches down amongst the bushes slowly, feeling the way her back pulls uneasily at the movement. She searches for blonde hair but finds only black, six guards with guns pacing the perimeter in turns, looking towards her hiding place as if they know she’s there.

Another guard comes out of the Ark as she watches, a gun hanging loosely from his shoulder. He calls to the others before he pulls his helmet off and she realises it’s Bellamy, the boy Clarke had wanted to protect so much she’d let a whole village burn.

Her hand twists around the hilt of her knife as she wonders why it’s him standing there and not Clarke.

He carries his arm stiffly, and she can see the cuts and bruises on his face from the trees, but it’s obvious he’s in charge because he shouts something to the other guards and they fall in at once, moving to the positions he points out.

She stays there long after he’s gone back inside, and after the guards have switched over and new men and women stand in their places, and then she stands silently and heads back to Tondc.

She walks so fast Cedrik has to jog to keep up, and when she gets back to her tent some of the marks on her back have reopened and ooze blood through her shirt. She pulls it off quickly, ignoring the way the blood makes it stick and pull, and sits with it in her hands for a long time, twisting the fabric round and round.

It rips, and she throws it into the fire and watches it burn.

//

Indra comes and asks if she has made a decision about Lincoln, so she goes to see him again, ordering her attendants to wait for her outside. He looks more haggard than before, but his face is healing and his breathing is even as he watches her come closer, his eyes bright in the gloom.

“I heard about the marks,” he says, once she’s come to a stop in front of him. She keeps her face blank and says nothing.

“Did it hurt?” he asks, and she swallows before she answers.

She’s going to say no, and she starts to shake her head, but what comes out instead is, “Yes,” in a strangled whisper that hangs between them.

He nods, accepting her answer.

“I didn’t include a mark for Clarke or Octavia,” she says after a moment, although she’s not sure why she tells him. She feels the shame low in her stomach and turns to pace over to the opposite wall, just so she can’t see the expression on his face.

“They’re dead, Lexa,” he says eventually, and she pretends not to notice how he uses her name instead of her title.

She nods, her forehead brushing the concrete. After a moment, she balls her hand into a fist and presses her knuckles into the wall, wishing she had its strength.

//

She watches the shadows lengthen in her tent, and adds more wood to the fire.

She kneels in front of it, the fingers of her left hand tangling into the fabric of her shirt as her right one finds it’s way underneath, moving to the scar over her heart.

After a moment, her right hand moves, finding smooth skin.

She tugs her shirt over her head quickly, shivering when the new skin on her back meets the air, and reaches for the rod she’d taken from the Marker’s hut. The glove she’d given to Clarke protects her hand.  

“Goodbye, Clarke of the sky people,” she whispers, “Your fight is over.”

Her hand shakes from the force of her grip around the rod, and she watches the end smoulder, smoke curling up to the roof of her tent.

“May we meet again,” she murmurs, in English, and hates the way her heart twists in her chest.

She remembers the door, and Clarke’s face, and wonders what inspired them to make their parting words so hopeful. She hates that she wants to believe in them.

She sits there for so long, swiping her free hand across the tears in her eyes, that the glowing tip of the rod fades back to black in her hand, and she thrusts it back into the fire like it’s a sword and the fire is her enemy, sparks flying into the air from the force of the blow.

She knows Clarke is gone, but she can’t stop herself from remembering her face and the way she’d looked at her the night before the battle, shy and surprised and hopeful in the firelight.

She kicks out at the brazier, sending the embers scattering over the floor. She waits, but the fire doesn’t spread, so she jerks her hand towards the Marker’s rod instead, Clarke’s glove protecting her once more.

She searches the map for the skaikru flag and drops it on the floor, pressing the metal against it until the flames catch against the paper. She huffs out a lungful of air and drops the rod, watching it roll away.

Tears sting her eyes as she watches the flag burn.  

//

The next time Indra comes to her with a scout report Lexa interrupts the familiar words—ten guards, Bellamy, no Clarke—and says, “I’ve thought about what you said. We should go to Polis.”

Indra blinks at her, but she manages to cover her surprise. “Heda, trigedakru do not run away from a fight.”

Lexa knows it’s not exactly what she means.

“The fight is done, Indra.” She flexes her hand, and feels her palm twinge under the glove. “We leave at dawn.”

//

She hasn’t ridden a horse over any kind of distance for a long time, and her still-healing back screams at her in protest as they make their way towards Polis.

She ignores the pain and clips her heels against her horse’s sides instead, urging it on. Lincoln breaks into a jog to keep up, the rope that binds his hands to her saddle stretching tight between them until he catches up.

The leather reins chafe against her hand and she grits her teeth as she jolts in the saddle, listening to Lincoln’s breathing speed up behind her.

“I never took you for a coward, Heda,” Lincoln says, when she finally slows the horse down on the crest of a hill to wait for her attendants.

She kicks out at him, but he sidesteps it, coming to a stop just out of her range. Her back aches, and she doesn’t waste energy on trying to hit him again.

“That’s quite an accusation.” The ghost of a smile at the corners of his mouth make her reach for the dagger at her waist and twist her hand around the hilt to keep from drawing it.

“You’re running away from the Mountain,” Lincoln says, he eyes her hand where it rests on the dagger. “You’re running away from them.” He doesn’t say their names, but Lexa knows who he means.

She makes a big show of reaching for the waterskin strapped to her saddle, and drinks deeply before tying it back in. She’s aware of the sun overhead and the sweat on Lincoln’s brow, and watches his tongue dart out to lick his lips.

“They’re dead, Lincoln.” She hears the sound of hooves behind her and picks up the reins again. “You can’t run away from that.”

//

She orders her people to make camp when it’s too dark to see through the trees, climbing down from her horse and striding into the night without bothering to untie Lincoln.

She keeps walking and doesn’t look back, ignoring Cedrik and Indra’s shouts behind her. She doesn’t stop until she’s so far away she can’t see their fires through the trees, and she goes down into a crouch, feeling her back ache and her palm burn, the strain of the day’s travel taking it’s toll on her body.

It’s never silent under the trees at night, and she listens to the rustle of the leaves and imagines there’s no one left in the world but her. No one to demand things of her she isn’t able to give.

No one to protect and no one to care about.

The moon rises into the sky before she turns around and goes back, slow at first, before she sees the watch fires and breaks into a run.

//

By the third night they’re close enough to Polis to not need to make camp, and she orders a quick break before they carry on towards the city.

She takes a long drink from her waterskin, ignoring Lincoln watching her, and then tips some onto her hands, washing the dirt off. Lincoln’s eyes follow where it drips onto the floor.

He hasn’t spoken since he accused her of running away, but he never stops watching her, and she sighs as she ties the waterskin back to her saddle.

“What wisdom do you have to share with me today.” She glares at him and hates how he refuses to wilt beneath her gaze.

“It took me a while to figure out,” he says, after a moment. “Why you kept me alive and why you tied me to your horse instead of passing me off to someone else.”

“Tell me,” she says, voice flat. “Why did I do these things?”

He meets her eyes and holds the gaze, and she won’t let herself be the first to look away. “Because you love Clarke.”

She says nothing, just wonders how fast she could kill him before he said it again where someone could hear.

“You understand why I did what I did. For Octavia.” He takes a step towards her, and she resists the urge to kick out at him. “Lexa, you would have done the same.”

She pretends to ignore that he used her name instead of her title.

“But the Commander could not. I put my people before my—” she stops and swallows, “any feelings I might have had. We survived because of me.”

He shakes his head and looks away. “It’s got to be about more than survival.”

She blinks, and for a second it’s Clarke looking back at her. She remembers the way Clarke had kissed her back the night before the battle, hesitant at first but then harder, sighing into Lexa’s mouth as their foreheads pressed against each other, losing herself in the moment before she’d stopped it.

“We can be more than the monsters they thought we were when they came down from the sky,” Lincoln says. “We were starting to be.”

She remembers the Maunon offering her a deal.

“We are who we are, Lincoln,” she says, eventually. The words hang heavy in the air between them, but her heart feels lighter once she’s said them. She tugs the waterskin from her saddle and tosses it to him, watching him struggle to catch it with his bound hands. “Come on. We’re nearly there.”

He drinks deeply before holding it up for her, and their fingers brush when she takes it back from him. “Yes, Heda.”

//

A cry goes up from her scouts when they see the city walls, and she sits up a little straighter in her saddle to try and take it all in. It’s been a long time since she was last here, but it looks the same way she remembers: an expanse of buildings made because someone wanted to, not just because they were functional.

She sees towers and domes in the distance, almost as tall as the trees in her woods.

“We made it,” Lincoln says, once they get close enough that the gates start to open, and Lexa nods up on her horse.

“Was there ever any doubt?”

He meets her eyes, and says nothing.

//

She sleeps in the brick building reserved for her people, one of twelve identical structures that stand in the centre of the city. She doesn’t miss her tent.

There’s a sense of permanence here that she’s never found in her villages, and a sense of peace. The city has always been a neutral place, away from the civil wars and clan demands, somewhere for the people to gather and bring the best of their clans and traditions, to trade and swap stories of the things that happened out in the world. To make things other than war.

The first night she goes to watch the street performers and scribers, watches the worlds they sketch out with nothing but their hands.

 _Clarke would have liked it_ , she thinks, _to find a place like this_.

She would have liked to have shown it to her.

//

Indra is never far away, and she comes to report in the mornings, telling Lexa the things she hears about the other clans and which leaders are already here, and Lexa files the information away and starts to plan out what she needs to do in her head.

She’s heard the people talking on the streets and knows her legend is changing, that’s she no longer just a ruthless girl in charge of an army, willing to do whatever it takes to look after her people. Now she’s ruthless and shortsighted, and left an enemy at their backs.

“The Ice Nation are stoking the rumours, Heda,” Indra tells her, her voice soft. “They have not forgotten what you did to their queen.”

Lexa says nothing, just lifts her hand to press against the scar on her chest, remembering. She had never seen so much blood before, and she never has again.

“They’ve tried to take down the Coalition before, and they’ll try again. I won’t let them, Indra.” She moves to grab the dagger at her waist by habit, her hand twisting around the hilt. “The alliance will hold.”

Indra nods. “The other clans will stand with you. I will speak to them myself.” It sounds like a threat and Lexa has to fight to keep the grim smile off her face.

“Call the meeting. Three nights from now. And I will answer their accusations.”

//

She spends the mornings in meetings with her generals, but in the afternoons she wipes her warpaint off and wanders around the city, refamiliarising herself with places she hasn’t seen for years. She stays away from the smiths and the Markers and goes to see the woodworkers and the scribers and jewellers instead.

She watches them make beautiful things with their hands, and only hesitates for a second before she trades the dagger at her waist for a twisted metal flower with light blue petals made out of some material Lexa doesn’t know, just because it reminds her of the color of Clarke’s eyes.

She twirls it in her fingers as she walks, imagining how Clarke would have looked when she gave it to her. Soft and surprised in the firelight, like the night before the battle.

It makes her chest feel tight, but she finds a way to keep breathing.

Her feet take her to the patched up marble building on the edge of the city, the one that’s stood there since before the bombs. It’s as huge and imposing as she remembers, and she nods at the girl at the door before she steps inside.

Anya had let her come here when they’d had to take a break from sparring to let Lexa’s wounds heal, and it’s the same as she remembers, the tall shelves shoved into the room haphazardly, books piled up everywhere she turns.

Some of them are so charred they’re impossible to read, but some look just as crisp and clean as the day they were made, and she wonders what Clarke would make of it, this shared heritage of a past both their people have forgotten.

Her fingers tighten around the stem of the flower, and she plucks a book off the shelf at random, letting it fall open somewhere in the middle as her eyes scan down the page. She hasn’t heard anyone speak English for so long that the words sound odd even in her head, and she puts that book back and reaches for another, and another, and then another, until the words start to make sense again.

//

The leaders of the other eleven clans are all older than she is, but she keeps her back straight and her face blank when she addresses them, her voice steady as she explains what happened at the Mountain.

Her eyes are cloaked in warpaint, and the fastens of her coat help her keep herself together.

“How do you know this truce will hold?” the new leader of the Ice Nation asks. Lexa thinks he looks like his mother, and it makes her angrier than the words he’s saying. “What guarantee do you have these Mountain Men will not try to take the land from us? You speak of their technology and weapons, and expect us to think they will not try to take what is ours?” The two bodyguards behind him stamp their feet in agreement, and Lexa fights to hide her annoyance.

“There are 350 Mountain Men, and they cannot multiply on the ground,” Lexa says quickly, remembering Clarke growing frustrated as she’d tried to condense years of her people’s medical knowledge into one strategy meeting. “If they come out of the Mountain we can pick them off one by one until there are none.”

The ice man huffs out a disbelieving breath. “And how do you know this? How do you know they haven’t taken the ground already? How many trikru warriors did you leave in Tondc, Heda?” He spits the title like an insult, and she puts her hand out to stop Indra when she steps forward to hit him.

She hates the way he smirks at them.

“The sky people told me this.” He scoffs, but she looks around at the other leaders, holding their gazes one by one. “I trust that the information is correct.”

“The same sky people you abandoned once you had made the deal with the Mountain. The same allies you left to die?” he asks, and she doesn’t bother to control herself this time. She has the blade of her sword pressed into his neck before anyone else moves, Indra and Cedrik moving to block off his bodyguards before they can retaliate.

“Do you remember how your mother died?” she hisses as him and has the satisfaction of seeing the fear in his eyes. “Would you like me to remind you?”

“She shames every one of us by abandoning an ally in the middle of—” He tries to say, but she presses her sword closer to his throat and he cuts off, swallowing hard. She sees a trickle of blood run down his neck.

“Enough!” she snaps, and waits for all eyes to come back to her. “I built this Coalition and I have given and taken blood to defend it. My commitment is not under discussion.” She kicks the ice man’s legs out from under him and watches him fall to his knees in front of her, pulling her sword away.

Her hand trembles when she moves to sheath it, and she balls it into a fist after she’s done to hide it.

“Your mother’s blood was taken in payment for wrongs done to me and mine. I have no fight with you.” It’s an old phrase no one really uses anymore, but it rings with authority and she watches him nod slowly, though not all of the hatred disappears from his eyes.

He climbs to his feet slowly. “And the Mountain? What of the enemy you left at our backs?”

Her hand settles on her hip, and she misses the dagger at her waist. It’s the leader of the boat people who saves her, stepping forward to say, “We send a scouting party back, a warrior from each clan. They can watch the Mountain and—”

“They need to get inside,” the ice man shakes his head. “She said her people watched the mountain for many nights after the battle. There was no sign of sky people or Mountain Men.”

Lexa sighs, seeing which way this is going. Indra glances at her out of the corner of her eye, like she knows what comes next.

“I have a prisoner,” she says, when no one moves to fill the silence, “valued by the sky people. If they live inside the Mountain they will open the door to him.”

“And if the sky people are dead?” the ice man asks.

“Then the Mountain can kill him and I will have one less prisoner to care about,” she says sharply, keeping her expression carefully blank. Indra glances at her again but says nothing.

“My people support this,” the leader of the boat people says, and then one by one the others echo her. The ice man is last, his words barely above a whisper.

“Choose your people,” Lexa says. “They will leave in the morning.”

//

She doesn’t let herself think about Clarke or the possibility that Lincoln might find her until the meeting is over and she’s back in the safety of her room, and she lets out a shaky breath as she stares at the metal flower propped up on the table next to her bed.

She pulls the charred skaikru flag she’d rescued from the fire in Tondc out of her pocket and twists it around and around in her hands, past the shiny pink of the new skin growing in where the fire had burned her.

“May we meet again,” she whispers.

It’s never sounded more like a prayer.

//

She’s kept him in a room in the trigedakru house since they arrived in Polis, and he stands respectfully when she enters, clasping his hands in front of him.

He listens carefully, and when she’s explained all he says is, “Why me?”

“Because if they’re alive they’ll speak to you, and if they’re not and the Maunon kill you, you’re expendable.” Lexa sighs and meets his eyes. “Either way you get your wish.”

“One way I get my wish,” he says slowly. “The thing I asked of you before… was a coward’s way out.” He straightens, and a hint of a smile ghosts over his face. “Get knocked down, get back up. Octavia had to remind me of that. She’d be angry if she knew I’d nearly given up.”

“They might knock you down many times on the journey, Lincoln. You’ll still be treated like a prisoner. I—” she swallows. “I am sorry about that.”

She really means it, and he looks surprised by the sincerity in her voice. She takes three steps forward and holds her hand out to him before she thinks better of it, and after a moment he clasps hers tightly in the way she’d seen the skaikru do it, using only their hands instead of their whole arms.

“Thank you, Commander,” he says as they let go, and she knows he doesn’t just mean for this.

She pauses in the doorway and takes a breath to steady herself. “If she’s alive, bring her back to me,” she whispers, and doesn’t wait for Lincoln’s reply before she steps out into the hall.

//

Indra knocks on her door late at night, and that alone should let Lexa know that something is not right.

“Send me with them,” Indra says, once Lexa has let her in. She stands straight but doesn’t meet Lexa’s eyes, staring past her carefully. “Send me back to the Mountain.”

“Cedrik has been chosen,” she says, with a hint of the Commander in it, half an order and half a question.

Indra is silent for a long time before she answers, voice tight. “He is trikru, Heda. Let me keep him safe.”

She wonders how much of it is that, and how much of it is Indra wanting to atone for leaving Octavia behind.

She nods, and Indra doesn’t quite manage to keep the smile off her face when she says, “Thank you, Heda.”

//

She sees them off at the gates, clasping the hand of each clan’s warrior before they leave. The man from the Ice Nation walks past without stopping, and she lets him go, despite Indra’s protestations.

Lexa almost has to push her through the gates, and Indra scoffs, stalking off with her hand on her sword. Her eyes follow the ice man wherever he goes.

When it’s Lincoln’s turn, she says “May we meet again,” in English and watches his eyes widen in surprise.

He doesn’t say anything as the warriors pull him along by the rope binding his hands, but he looks back at her over his shoulder and nods, just once, so she can see.

//

It’s easy to disappear in the city, now that Indra has gone. There are more people here to blend into, and less people that have heard the fearsome legend of the Commander and would know it belongs to her.

She takes off some of her armor and the warpaint and she could be any other second visiting the city for the first time as part of their training, and just as invisible.

She ghosts around the marketplaces, and goes down to the docks to watch the boat people ply their trade, the parts of civilisation she’d almost forgotten existed while she was out in the woods. It’s what she wanted to show Clarke, that there could be something waiting for them, after the war and the Mountain and the blood.

She moves until she’s far enough away from the hawkers and their wares, far enough from the glances the boat people give her, to sit down on the edge of a disused bit of the dock, her feet hanging over the edge.

The light reflecting off the water is so bright it blinds her, and she squints, thinking of dappled sunlight under the trees, glinting off blond hair.

She wonders if Clarke would have sat by her and made her get her feet wet, if Clarke would have splashed her and made her laugh, if she would have leaned into Clarke’s side and kissed her under the sun.

She wonders if they have might have been happy here, after all.

She wonders if they still could be, if Lincoln finds her.

For the first time in a long time, her heart doesn’t ache at the thought.

//

She dreams of Clarke arriving at the gates with fresh scars and pain behind her eyes.

Clarke greets her with a punch, so hard Lexa hears something break in her hand, or Clarke cups her face in her hands and kisses her, hard and desperate, where the entire city can see. Or Clarke says nothing while endless apologies drip from Lexa’s lips, and she walks away and leaves Lexa this time instead.

Or Clarke understands and Lexa says nothing, but there’s a wall between them that nothing can breach.

//

Indra and the other warriors come back when twelve nights have passed, and Lexa demands that she reports before she’s had chance to wash off the dirt from the journey.

“We sent him to the door in the tunnels. There were people in skaikru colors there, Heda. I saw them. I saw—”

“Clarke,” Lexa breathes before she can stop herself. Her voice sounds tiny in the space between them.

Indra nods, and if Lexa didn’t know better she’d think she was smiling. “And Octavia. They’re alive.”

Lexa tries to keep her face blank, but she knows it isn’t working, and she paces backwards and forwards in front of the maps spread out on her table instead.

 _Clarke is alive_.

She picks the skaikru flag up and twists her shaking hands around it. “Did you speak to them? Was there word from Lincoln?”

“We waited for seven nights, but no one left the Mountain. The other warriors would not risk going in, despite my attempts to persuade them.” Lexa hears the tone of her voice and wonders if the ice man still lives. “But Lincoln is inside. He can lead them back here.”

It almost sounds like an apology.

She remembers Clarke’s face at the mountain door and telling her it’ll take as long as it takes, and wants to laugh only it’s not funny at all. She wishes she felt that calm now. She wishes her hands didn’t shake, and there was a dagger in her belt to hold on to.

Her eyes find the flower on the other side of the room, and her hands still.

“She’ll come if she wants to.” It’s not meant to be a question, but it comes out a little bit like one.

Indra grips her arm and nods, eyes bright. “She will come, Heda. They all will.”

//

Eight nights pass.

She spends them alone in her room, staring at the flower and the flag and her maps, rearranging the closed pots of warpaint, and twisting her arms behind herself until she can feel the scars on her skin.

She cleans the rusty powder of old blood off her coat, and rubs at her sword until she can see her own eyes staring back at her. She throws it across the room, and doesn’t care where it lands.

She holds the skaikru flag in her hands, moving it from the Mountain to Polis and back again on the maps, before picking it up and starting again. She wonders if she went back to the Mountain Clarke would open the door and let her in.

She’s not all that sure she wants to know the answer.

At least alone in her room she can pretend that Clarke would.

//

She wakes to the sound of warhorns, and she throws her hand out for the dagger that should be next to her bed but finds the metal stem of the flower instead.

“Heda,” Cedrik calls through the door, while she tries to remember why she’s not in a tent in the woods. “Heda, they need you at the gates.”

“Clarke,” she breathes, and climbs out of bed so fast her back twinges a little at the motion. She grabs for her pants and pulls on her coat, not bothering to fasten the buckles or pick up the sword propped up by the door on the way out.

Cedrik fixes her with a look when he notices she has no weapon and she tells him to shut up before he can speak, hurrying down the streets until the gates come into view up ahead. They’re already opening, and she breaks into a run, not caring when Cedrik shouts behind her or she has to push two people out of her way. It’s unbecoming of the Commander, childish and stupid, but after years of practicing restraint she doesn’t have enough left in her to calm herself down now.

Her heart beats shakily against her chest as she comes to a stop, Cedrik breathing heavily behind her.

She sees Lincoln first, and then Octavia, still with her warpaint and the sword over her shoulder. Their hands are clasped tightly between them and Lincoln nods when he sees her, some of the pain gone from his eyes.

She recognises Bellamy next, gun slung over his shoulder with the armor of his people across his chest, and Raven behind them limping a little more than she used to. They’re flanked by a sad-eyed boy and a girl with a gun she recognises from Clarke’s camp.

They step aside and her breath catches in her throat.

Clarke looks nothing like she remembers.

The scars on her face and the messy cut of her hair make something inside Lexa ache, but the look in her eyes is worse. They look empty, like all the fire, like everything that made her Clarke, has disappeared.

 _She looks like a Reaper_ , her mind whispers, and Lexa feels all the hope she’d clung to since she found out Clarke was alive disappear in an instant.

Clarke favors her left leg as she pushes past the others and comes to a stop, much further away than Lexa wants her to be, and it’s only the way Clarke is pointedly looking anywhere but at her that keeps Lexa’s feet rooted to the ground.

She’s fighting as hard as she can to keep her face expressionless, but she doesn’t think it’s really working, and she glances around at the gate guards and the people who came when they heard the horns and for once, none of them are looking at her.

Everyone’s eyes are fixed on Clarke, and Lexa doesn’t miss the way Raven and Octavia inch closer to her like they’re trying to protect her.

Lexa clenches her jaw, hating that they feel they have to.

Everyone is silent, waiting. The hand by Clarke’s side trembles the same way Lexa’s does when she holds the skaikru flag, only Clarke’s is holding a gun.

Lexa opens her mouth to say something—anything—but Clarke beats her to it.  

“Ai laik Clarke kom skaikru,” Clarke says hoarsely, turning away from her to address the crowd. “En ai…” her eyes flick over to Lincoln and Lexa wonders if he’d taught her the words. “I’m here to tell you, osir gonsplei ste odon. Th—the Maun-de… oso breik au. Maunon ste daun.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At the end, Clarke says: "I'm Clarke of the Sky People. And I... I'm here to tell you, our [all of us here] fight is over. The Mountain... we [my friends and I] broke out. The Mountain Men are dead.“


	3. Chapter 3

The words hang in the air, and she hopes she’s said them right.

There are too many eyes on her, and it’s only the look Octavia gives her that keeps her on her feet. She can feel her hand shaking, and she tightens her grip around the gun in the hopes that it’ll make it stop before anyone notices.

She doesn’t look at Lexa. She pretends not to see that she has no warpaint on and no weapons at her sides. She pretends not to see that Lexa’s coat is hanging half open, like she didn’t even allow herself the time to get dressed before she rushed to the gates.

She pretends not to notice that Lexa only looks at her.

(She looks as young as Clarke has ever seen her.)

Lexa starts to take a step towards her like she can’t help herself and then stops when Clarke can’t keep herself from flinching, the hand holding the gun twitching by her side. Clarke sees a couple of the guards by the gate reach for their swords in response, and wants to laugh, only it’s not funny at all.

She thinks she sees Bellamy and Monroe tighten their grips on their guns out of the corner of her eye.

Lexa doesn’t move, but her eyes flick over to the guards and then back to Clarke, and Clarke sees Lexa’s walls come back up as she steadies herself, turning back into the Commander right before her eyes.

It’s only the look in her eyes when they linger on Clarke that gives her away, but Clarke isn’t sure if anyone else can see it.

One of Lexa’s hands moves to her waist like she’s expecting to find a weapon, and hovers there for a second before dropping back to her side. She looks away when she realises Clarke is watching her, turning to address the crowd.

“The sky people bring great news from the Mountain: the Mountain Men are defeated,” Lincoln says, translating Lexa’s speech for them. “They will be my guests and walk under my protection for as long as they stay here. The war is over,” Lexa glances back at Clarke, and Clarke ignores how even in a language she doesn’t understand it almost sounds like a question, “our people are free.”

There are cheers from the crowd, and Clarke tightens her grip around the gun. She wants to ask if they’d still be cheering if their friends had lost their lives inside the Mountain, strapped in to an operating table while their bones were broken open, or shot and killed just for daring to fight back.

“Clarke,” Bellamy murmurs, half a warning, and she wonders how her face looks right now. She’s not all that sure she wants to know.

She blinks her eyes shut and takes a shaky breath against the tightness in her chest.

When she opens them Lexa is in front of her again, and she has to force herself not to take a step back. “You are my guests,” Lexa says softly, in English. “The people will expect you to stay in the trigedakru house.”

It sounds like an apology, and Clarke doesn’t look at her when she says, “Lead the way.”

//

Polis isn’t anything like she expected.

There are no tents, and everything is made out of brick or stone or metal, permanent and beautiful in this weird way Clarke doesn’t understand. It looks like someone has actually planned out the paths between buildings, so there’s none of the narrow gaps to squeeze through where tents or stalls have encroached on to paths, like there was in Tondc.

Polis looks like it could have existed before the bombs, and Clarke isn’t sure how to reconcile that with the world she’s lived in since the dropship. She’s not sure she can accept that this city has been here this whole time, and if they’d been dropped further east and away from the wood, they might have avoided the war altogether.

She might have avoided becoming this person, whose hands still shake whenever she thinks about the past.

They pass shops full of people, buildings with open first floors where people sit at tables eating, and something that looks like a school, rows of children sitting in rows listening intently. People laugh and smile, no weapons at their waists.

She doesn’t know what to do with any of it.

They round a corner and she sees a wall of papers and brushes and paints through a window, and comes to a stop, eyes wide. There are more colors than she’s ever seen before, and her chest aches with the need to run her fingers over them all, just to make sure they’re real.

She stands there so long the others start to disappear into a crowd, and then someone bumps into her and she comes back to herself, remembering where she is. The man murmurs what she assumes is sorry in trigedasleng, but there’s too much curiosity in his eyes when he looks at her, and she takes a step back, trying to increase the distance between them.

“Sorry,” Clarke mumbles, and hurries to catch the others up, her hands twisting around the straps of her pack so hard her knuckles turn white.

//

Lexa leads them to the middle of the city, to where there are twelve nearly-identical houses standing in a circle.

“These are the clan houses,” Lexa says, not turning around to look at them, and Clarke wonders if it’s because she can’t bring herself to. Her back is straight, and her bodyguard stands silently by her side, glancing back at them. “The trigedakru house is yours for as long as you stay here,” Lexa points to the one she’s facing. “Cedrik will show you which rooms you can use.”

Octavia and Lincoln move at once, Bellamy behind them, but Monty and Raven glance at her, waiting for her to nod before they follow. Monroe trails after them, one hand still on her gun.

Pretty soon, it’s just her and Lexa standing there, silent and staring.

“Clarke—” Lexa says, at the same time Clarke says, “I should go with them,” and she takes two steps forward before stopping again and watches Lexa’s mouth open and close like she doesn’t know what else to say.

“Clarke, I’m—” Lexa starts to say and then cuts off again. Clarke thinks she sees her swallow, and looks away, shaking her head.

She wants to shout at Lexa. She wants to hit her. She wants to point her gun at her and tell her about all the things that happened after she left them at the Mountain door. About Jasper, and her friends, and the white room, and her mother. She wants to tell her about her shaking hands, and the headaches she gets at night.

She wants to tell Lexa it was all her fault.

(She wants to wrap her arms around Lexa and bury her face in her hair, and that makes her so angry she almost can’t breathe.)

She walks past her instead, towards the door where Monroe is turning back to make sure she’s okay.

“I’m glad you’re alive, Clarke.” Lexa’s voice is so small she almost doesn’t hear it.

She doesn’t stop walking.

//

The room she’s shown to is on the second floor and contains a bed with a table next to it and a desk. There’s one hook in the middle of the door, and she stares at it for a long time before she unbuckles her coat and hangs it up on it. The leather pieces Lexa had insisted her people add to it almost brush the floor.

She opens the wooden shutters over the windows and looks out into the haze of buildings in the distance, trying to remember the way back to the gate. She can’t see the way they came in from here and it makes her anxious, the familiar fluttery feeling back in her chest.

She keeps her hands pressed flat to the the bottom of the window and waits for it to pass.

//

She doesn’t tell them to, but her friends come to her room one by one, Monroe pacing over to look out the window while Bellamy hovers by the door protectively.

She knew they would, and she keeps her face blank as she watches them, Raven leaning against the wall to take some of the weight off her leg, Monty moving to sit next to Clarke on the bed, Octavia climbing on to the desk and kicking her feet up on the chair.

They make the room feel too small and too big all at once.

“So we’re here,” Raven says, when no one else does. “And they don’t seem like they’re about to attack us.” She tries to make it sound casual but Clarke can hear the relief under the sarcasm.

“You were right,” Monty adds, looking at Clarke. “They need this as much as we do.”

Clarke just nods, trying not to think about the expression on Lexa’s face out by the gates. “The alliance will hold.”

“Are we sure of that?” Bellamy asks, glancing out into the hall.

“No,” Clarke tells him, her eyes fixed on the floor. “But I’ll make sure. There’ll be a meeting with the other clans. They’ll want to know what happened at the Mountain.”

“They’ll want to know we aren’t a threat now,” Octavia says, and Clarke nods, knowing it’s true.

“Are we?” Raven asks quickly, searching Clarke’s face.

She only hesitates for a second, and then she says, “The war is over,” and clenches her hands behind her back so the others can’t see them shaking.

//

Lexa’s bodyguard— _Cedrik_ , she remembers—comes and knocks on her door a little later, standing smartly to attention and pretending not to notice the gun in her hand when she opens the door.

“Heda has sent me to tell you you are free to explore the city if you want to, and that I have been assigned to protect you whenever you leave the house.”

He pauses like Clarke’s supposed to say something, and she blinks at him until he goes on, feeling a surge of irritation at Lexa. She doesn’t need to be protected, and she definitely doesn’t want to be protected by her.

“I will be by the door, if you need me…” He trails off and then says, “Forgive me, I do not know your proper title or how to address you.”

She shakes her head. “I’m Clarke. I’m just Clarke,” she says, not quite managing to keep her voice level.  She swallows past the dryness in her throat, and hopes he hasn’t noticed. “And you don’t have to protect me, tell your Commander that I can look after myself.” It doesn’t come out quite as hard as she means.

She starts to shut the door, but he moves his foot to block it. She shoves it a little harder, but he doesn’t even flinch. “With respect, she said you would say that.”

Clarke huffs out a breath. “So what did the all-knowing Commander say would happen next?” She folds her arms over her chest, the gun still clasped in her left hand, and glares at him, but his face doesn’t change.

“She said to tell you I would be by the door when you wanted to leave, Clarke of the sky people.”

“Great,” she mumbles after him when he turns to leave. “Thanks.” She can’t keep the sarcasm out of her voice, and she turns and slams the door with a little more force than she means to.

//

She explores the house, later.

Octavia ghosts out of her room to follow her silently, eyes alert under the warpaint.

They pass more bedrooms, doors hanging open and empty, and rooms with pools of water in the middle that look warm and inviting. The water is clearer than any she’s ever seen, and she wonders if anyone would stop her from jumping in and sinking to the bottom.

(“Come on,” Octavia says, her hand warm on her shoulder.)

They find the main staircase and take it down, sticking to the shadows and avoiding people’s eyes.

There are men and women in the main hall, sitting in groups on the tables and benches, laughing and talking loudly in their own language. She sees one group that look like they’re playing some sort of game involving colored stones and a circular board, and watches one of them lift his hands over his head as he wins a round.

“It’s like nothing happened to them,” Octavia murmurs, her hand clenching into a fist by her side.

“The war is over,” Clarke says, and Octavia just turns to look at her.

“Right,” she says, but it doesn’t really sound like she’s agreeing with her.

//

She sits on the bed with her back pressed to the wall, watching the sky darken through the window, the ache in her head throbbing in time with her heartbeat. The sketchbook she’d brought with her from the Mountain lies open next to her, the stick of charcoal lying in the crack between pages.

She’d sketched the skyline, and then shaded in the sky above, leaving spaces for the stars, but it’s messy from where her hands won’t stop shaking every time she grips the charcoal.

She doesn’t know what she’s doing here, or why she thought it was a good idea to come herself when she could have just sent Bellamy in her place, and she ends up pressing her fingers against her eyelids, so hard her vision swims when she finally stops.

_Clarke of the sky people_ , she thinks and wants to laugh. _If only they could see me now_.

//

She can see the moon through the window when someone knocks on the door, and she opens it slowly, her left hand gripping her gun. Her hand tightens around it when she sees who it is.

“Clarke,” Lexa says softly, like she doesn’t know what else to say.

Clarke hates that there’s a part of her that missed the way Lexa says it.

The buckles on Lexa’s coat are actually fastened now, but the warpaint is still missing from around her eyes. She looks nervous, her eyes flicking to Clarke’s face and then away quickly like she can’t let herself look for too long.

Clarke tries to harden her heart and find some satisfaction in it, but ends up looking away instead.

“Commander,” Clarke says, and she's not sure if she imagines the pained expression that passes over Lexa’s face or not.

“I understand if you don’t want to see me,” Lexa says, when Clarke stares at the wall behind her head, waiting. “I just came to return this.”

When Lexa holds out her hand, it takes Clarke a moment to recognise the thing she’s offering to her. It’s the glove Lexa had given her the morning of the battle, and Clarke remembers how the way Lexa’s fingers had brushed against her skin when she’d tugged it on for her had made her shiver.

(The matching one is tucked away in her pack, right at the bottom, where she doesn’t have to look at it.)

It’s such a flimsy reason for Lexa being there that Clarke huffs out something that isn’t quite a laugh. “Yeah, I really missed it,” she says, but doesn’t quite manage to put the sarcasm in it that she means to, and Lexa’s eyes flick to hers and away again in this hopeful way that makes Clarke want to shut the door and never open it again.

The moment starts to stretch, so Clarke reaches for the glove carefully with her empty hand, making sure she doesn’t actually touch Lexa’s fingers. The leather is warm from the heat of Lexa’s hands and Clarke fists it in hers, pretending she doesn’t notice.

Lexa doesn’t move to leave, and Clarke tries to ignore the part of her mind that’s screaming at her to shut the door in Lexa’s face before she gets taken in again.

( _Love is weakness, Clarke_.)

“I thought you were dead,” Lexa says eventually, voice barely above a whisper. “I thought—”

“That you killed me?” Clarke wills her voice not to crack, and miraculously it doesn’t.

“Yes,” Lexa whispers, and when Clarke meets her eyes again there’s so much shame in them that Clarke has to look away.

She remembers waking up in the white room in the Mountain, and the blur of days spent strapped to the bed. She remembers how it felt like her head had been cut open and emptied out, and the nights she’d spent ghosting around the mountain, wishing no one would see her.

She pushes away the ache in her chest and tries to reach for her anger instead.

She means to shout at her. She means to tell her that she doesn’t want to see her again, that she’s leaving Polis and Lexa can keep her stupid glove, but what comes out is, “I’m not sure you didn't," her voice breaking over the words.

Her vision blurs from the tears that are threatening to fall, and she hears Lexa’s breath hitch in her throat and has to turn and shut the door.

She wasn’t supposed to let Lexa see her like this, broken and empty with her scars and shaking hands. She was supposed to be Clarke kom skaikru, who would have committed genocide to win a war if the Mountain Men hadn’t surrendered first.

(She doesn’t want to be, but.)

She stands there for a long time, her back pressed flat against the wood, remembering Lexa walking away from her and listening for the sound of footsteps.

She never hears them.

//

She dreams about Lexa.

Lexa offering apologies and explanations, telling her she’d do anything to make up for what she did at the Mountain, telling her she knows there’s a part of Clarke that understands, telling her that all she wants is for their people to live in peace and the war to be over.

Clarke dreams about her hands shaking when Lexa says it, and Lexa kissing them, peeling back the gloves and tossing them aside now they’re no longer needed.

In her dream she kisses Lexa and presses her back into the bed, her hands finding their way into Lexa’s clothes, desperate and wanting. She’s surprised by how small and skinny Lexa is under her armor, and Clarke touches her gently in case she might break, her hands mapping out the path they should have taken while her mind tries to forget the one they did.

She wakes up breathing hard, and rolls over to check the chair she’d wedged against the door is still there.

She eyes it gratefully, glad that there’s no one to witness her flushed cheeks and dishevelled hair.

//

Cedrik is standing outside her door when she opens it in the morning and she comes to a stop and sighs out, “You’re very persistent.”

“Heda has sent me with a message,” he says, ignoring her words, and something about the way he says it makes Clarke wonder if he knows Lexa came to see her the night before. “There will be a clan meeting later today and the skaikru’s presence is required. You are allowed two attendants. I will fetch you when it is time.”

She knew this would happen, but she somehow isn’t ready for it. She leans against the doorframe and presses her hand flat against the wall to steady herself, inside the room where he can’t see it. “They want me to tell them about the Mountain.”

“Yes,” Cedrik agrees, turning to leave. He hesitates at the end of the hall. “Heda told me to tell you that you are allowed to bring weapons,” he says, without turning to face her. “She said, ‘Remember you’re a great warrior now, Clarke.’”

She knows what Lexa means is that they both have roles to fulfil, but Cedrik disappears around the corner before she can ask him which one Lexa will be playing, a girl who has feelings or a Commander who has none.

//

She ducks out through a back door off the kitchen a little later, trying to retrace the steps she’d taken the day before and hoping no one will notice her leaving. She doesn’t find the shop with the paper and paints easily, but she finds it, and hovers in the doorway for a long moment before the shopkeeper notices her and beckons her inside.

He asks her something in trigedasleng and she just shakes her head, reaching out to touch the pots reverently, staring at the colored spots on their lids.

She sees enough greens to paint all the colors of the leaves she’d seen back in the woods, and one blue that’s exactly the same color the sky was on their first day on earth, back when she couldn’t believe they’d really made it and she thought it meant that everything was going to be okay.

The paper is thicker than the pages of her sketchbook when she touches it, but she knows it would hold the color well even without seeing inside the pots of paint. She goes down the row of brushes until she gets to the smaller ones, finding one about the thickness of the charcoal back in her room.

“Do you want to trade?” the shopkeeper asks, after he tries again in trigedasleng and gets no response, and Clarke shakes her head.

“I just wanted to look,” she says, sliding her fingers against the end of the brush. “I’ve never seen colors like this.”

His eyes narrow in confusion as he watches her, and she wonders if he’d understand if she tried to explain it to him, about being locked up in the sky and drawing pictures of how she imagined the earth to be in black and grey lines.

About how she just needed to go somewhere that let her pretend no one needed anything from her.

“Thank you,” she mumbles eventually, as she moves towards the door, trying to look at everything one last time before she ducks out of the door.

//

She gets lost on the way back to the house and starts to panic, breaking into a run, as if that might help.

It doesn’t, and when she straightens up there’s a girl staring at her in surprise and she takes a step back before she can stop herself.

“Sorry,” Clarke stammers. “I—I’m kinda lost.”

The street is full of empty market stalls, but there’s jewellery all over the one the girl is standing behind, glinting in the sun. Clarke thinks the girl looks around the same age as her, but her face is soft and open and when she offers Clarke a hesitant smile it makes her look younger.

Clarke wonders how old she looks now, with her messy hair and empty eyes.

“Do you… want to trade?” the girl says slowly, like she’s still learning the words.

“I don’t have anything,” Clarke says, taking a step closer to the stall in spite of herself. She examines the necklaces and rings slowly, while the girl watches her. They remind her of the things Finn made, only more delicate, all thin bands of metal and tiny drops of colored glass. “They’re beautiful,” she says, and really means it. “Did you make these?”

For some reason, the only things she thought grounders made was war, and the tiny specks of color in the glass make something turn over, low in her stomach.

The girl smiles again, and Clarke has to look away, no longer knowing what to do with pretty girls who smile at her. She turns to leave, but the girl calls “Wait!” and her feet do, even though she’s not sure she gave them permission.

The girl reaches for something on the stall and then comes around the side to loop it over Clarke’s head before Clarke can protest. It’s a pendant hanging on tiny links of chain, a small square of metal dyed some inky iridescent blue-black with holes cut through in little clusters like stars.

“Please,” the girl says, her hand brushing against Clarke’s where she holds the pendant. “For you.”

Clarke meets her eyes, wondering if it means that the girl knows who she is and then wanting to say that if she does, she should know that Clarke doesn’t deserve anything so beautiful after the things she’s done, but no words come out, and her hand twists a little tighter around the pendant as she stands there, her mouth opening and then closing again.

That easy smile quirks at the corners of the girl’s mouth again, and she ducks her head forward to press a kiss to Clarke’s cheek. Clarke’s so surprised she doesn’t move, just blinks at the girl when she pulls back.

She can still feel the warmth of the girl’s mouth against her skin.

The girl laughs at the expression on her face and goes back to her stall, waving her hands at Clarke like she’s trying to shoo her away. “Mochof,” she says, and then slower, like she’s having to work to translate the words, “for making my day more beautiful.”

She still doesn’t know what to do with the way the girl looks at her, so she stares down at the pendant again instead.

Clarke of the sky people, she thinks, and lifts her head to meet the girl’s eyes.

“Thank _you_ ,” she says, “just— thank you.”

//

Somehow, no one noticed she was missing.

She tucks the pendant the girl had given her inside her shirt when she gets ready, not wanting anyone else to see, and she feels it against her skin, cool and comforting.

She pulls her coat on and tightens the strap across her chest, tucking her gun and the knife Bellamy had taken from the armory before they’d left the Mountain into her belt. She checks she can still get to them if she needs to, drawing one and then the other quickly from underneath the leather Lexa had added to her coat.

She’s given up trying to control her hair, but she drags her fingers through the longer side anyway, trying to neaten it up. She’s sure it looks no different, and she tugs at the long bits left on the other side, trying to get them to cover up the messy new growth underneath.

She searches her pack and stares at the glove she finds there for a long time before she slowly pulls it on, then reaches for the one Lexa had given her the day before where it lies next to her bed.

She flexes her fingers, watching them for shakes.

There’s a knock on her door, and she waits to open it until she’s sure her hands are still.

//

Lexa waits for them outside the meeting hall, wrapped in her armor and warpaint, her sword at her side.

She nods to Octavia and Bellamy, and then tilts her chin up to acknowledge Clarke. “Clarke of the sky people.”

“Commander,” Clarke says back, past the tightness in her chest.

Lexa’s face is impassive as she takes her in, and Clarke just stares back unmoving, until Lexa nods.

“Follow me,” she says.

Clarke does.

//

There are subtle differences to the clan leaders’ appearances that Clarke wasn’t expecting, in the way they dress and carry themselves, in their weapons and warpaint.

They favor different colors, blues and browns, yellows, greens, greys and white, and when they tell her which clans they represent she realises it’s the colors of the parts of the world they live in. Blues for the boat people who live and die by the water, white for the Ice Nation whose leader glares at Lexa with hatred in his eyes every time she speaks.

She wonders if they think the fading turquoise of her coat is supposed to mirror the color of the sky, and she resists the urge to tug at it self-consciously while Lexa tells the others that the skaikru have defeated the Mountain and come to make sure their alliance still holds.

“I want to hear it from them,” the man from the Ice Nation says, pointing at where Clarke stands, Bellamy and Octavia either side of her. “How did you defeat an enemy we have been fighting for as long as anyone remembers?”

Clarke meets his eyes, refusing to be the first to look away. “I had people in the Mountain. I took my warriors through the tunnels and my friends let us in.” She isn’t ready for the blur of memories that assault her, the sound of gunfire and people screaming, the flashbangs the Mountain Men had thrown at them. She swallows and tries to push them away. “We fought our way inside, up the levels.”

She hates that so few words are enough to explain what they did.

“It cannot be as simple as that,” he says, turning to address the other clan leaders. “The Maunon survived inside the Mountain for a hundred years. All our attempts to destroy them failed.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Octavia’s hand twitch towards the hilt of her sword. Across the table from her, Lexa’s does the same. The ice man’s eyes flick between Lexa and Clarke with interest, and something about the way he does it makes Clarke wish she hadn’t noticed.

“The Mountain Men had the acid fog to keep them safe. Once we’d taken that down and opened the doors all their advantages were gone,” Clarke says. “They’d never fought anyone who had the same technology as them. They couldn’t handle it.”

She remembers firing so many bullets her finger had started to go numb on the trigger, and ordering her friends to take positions and watching them go, not knowing if she’d ever see them again. She remembers the grenades Raven had made, blowing three Mountain Men to pieces right in front of her, so close it made her ears ring.

She shakes her head to try and clear it.

“You’re just children. Do you expect me to believe you and your friends took down the Mountain alone?”

Bellamy loops an arm around Octavia’s waist to hold her back when she starts to move towards him, her sword halfway out of its scabbard. The ice man laughs at them, drawing himself up to his full height just so he can look down on them.

“You have no discipline, no weapons,” he gestures at Clarke and it makes her want to draw her gun and show him just how wrong he is. She balls her hands into fists at her sides instead. “No Marks on your shoulders, no one who has seen more than a handful of summers... What do you have besides these lies about winning a war you should never have been a part of?”

Lexa moves before Clarke can stop her, punching the ice man with a sickening thump where the studs on her glove meets his face. Blood gushes out of his nose, and Lexa has her sword pressed to his throat before he can lift a hand to stem the flow.

Cedrik and the other bodyguard Clarke doesn’t know draw their swords and move closer, to block off the two men the leader of the Ice Nation has with him. Their expressions don't change and Clarke wonders how often they've had to back Lexa up in these meetings, how often the clan leaders come to blows.

None of the others seem that surprised.

Bellamy lets go of Octavia to bring his gun up to point at them, and Clarke only realises she’s drawn her gun when it’s in her hand, pointing at where the ice man glares at Lexa.

“Me,” Lexa hisses, “and you will show them more respect. Clarke has already done more for our people than you ever will.”

Just for a second, Clarke thinks she sees a satisfied smile twist the ice man’s mouth, but she blinks and it’s gone.

“They are children. How can they guarantee their elders won’t come looking for revenge for your betrayal?” he says, but now none of the other clan leaders will meet his eyes.

“I was a child when your mother attacked my people,” Lexa says, pressing her sword a little closer to his skin. Clarke thinks it sounds like a threat, and she takes a step forward quickly, ignoring the way his eyes flick to her gun fearfully.

“I’ve led my people into one war,” Clarke says quickly. “You have my word I won’t lead them in to another.”

She doesn’t know how to tell them that the thought alone makes her want to curl up in her room and never come out, so she lowers her gun to try and prove it instead. After a second Octavia glances over at her and sheaths her sword.

Bellamy keeps his gun pointing at them, and a tiny part of Clarke wants to tell him to stop pointing it at Lexa.

“The word of a child—” the man starts to sneer and then stops when Lexa swings her hand back to hit him again

“Commander,” Clarke says sharply, before she can. Lexa’s eyes slide over to her and her hand drops, but she doesn’t lower the sword from the man's throat.

“I don’t want there to be any more bloodshed because of me,” Clarke says, fighting hard to keep the hand that holds her gun steady by her side. “He doesn’t have to believe me. But he should know that my people and I killed the leader of the Maunon, and his son, and when the rest of them came for us I told them I would burn them all if they didn’t stop, the same way I burnt 300 of the Commander’s warriors when they attacked us in the woods before the alliance.”

She waits until all eyes are on her, trying not to remember the smell of burnt flesh hanging in the air. She swallows and just for a second she can taste it again.

“They believed me.”

There’s an appraising look in the man’s eyes, and Clarke looks over at Lexa until she starts to lower her weapon. She glares at the ice man as she steps away, pacing over to the other side of the war table.

“The war is over,” Clarke forces herself to say, as she tucks her gun back into her belt, “and we won.”

She’s still not sure she believes it but she keeps her hands steady when she tells them.

//

Lexa walks with her back to the house, Bellamy and Octavia slowing down and walking with Lexa’s bodyguards to give them some privacy.

Clarke wishes they wouldn’t, but she’s also kind of glad that they have.

“You did well,” Lexa tells her, once the silence has started to stretch. “Reminding them of what you did to my warriors…” she trails off and looks away. “That was smart.”

Clarke just nods and doesn’t say anything.

She’s tired of it all, the threats and posturing, the manipulation.

She feels numb, and she doesn’t think she has the energy left to deal with this weird whatever-it-is that’s between them, like they’re pretending Lexa didn’t betray her and leave her to die in the middle of a war, or not mentioning it at least, as if that might make them both forget.

(She sees the guilt in Lexa’s eyes every time she looks at her, and knows she never will.)

They’re in the courtyard in front of the house when Lexa says, “Will you be staying in Polis long?” in this voice that’s a little too casual, like she had to work hard to get it to sound that way, and Clarke comes to a stop, blinking at her.

She opens her mouth to say something and realises that she doesn’t know, and after a moment what comes out is, “Do you want me to?”

Lexa looks like the question actually hurts her. She clenches her jaw as they stare at each other, and then she nods quickly, just once, like she’s afraid someone might see. She looks the same way she had before she’d kissed Clarke in the tent, and Clarke swallows past the lump in her throat, not knowing what to say.

It occurs to her now that maybe the kiss hadn’t been a way to lower her defenses before the battle, to make her blind to the possibility that Lexa would take the first deal offered and walk away with her people, leaving Clarke to fight the battle alone.

She’d spent so long in the Mountain convincing herself that it was that it feels like the ground has dropped out from under her, and she has to fight hard not to sway where she stands.

“Clarke, I—” Lexa says, and takes half a step towards her, only Clarke never finds out what she’s going to say because she can’t stop herself from taking half a step back in response, and watches Lexa freeze again, doubt replacing some of the softness in her eyes.

They stand there for so long that the others catch up with them, Octavia’s eyes sliding between the two of them slowly while the others pointedly look away.

Lexa is the first one to move, snapping something at Cedrik in trigedasleng as she turns, her coat flapping around her legs, and Clarke just watches her go, ignoring Octavia when she asks if she’s okay.

//

She’s fighting hard to keep her breathing even by the time she gets back to her room, and she shuts the door on Octavia’s questions, ripping the gloves from her hands and throwing them across the room, not looking where they land.

It doesn’t feel like her lungs are really working, like all the oxygen she’s inhaling is disappearing somewhere before it gets to where she needs it, and she runs her hands through her hair but it doesn’t help, getting tangled up in the longer side, her nails scratching at her scalp.

She presses her hands flat against the wall to hold herself up, and tries to ignore the ragged, shallow sound of her breathing while she waits for her heart to stop racing in her chest.

//

She dreams about the room she found Cage in, and the three guards who protected him before she killed them, the faces she tries not to remember grimacing in pain as they die.

She dreams about Monty’s voice crackling out of the walkie talkie on her belt, calling her name desperately.

Cage tells her his people deserve the ground just as much as hers do and that they won’t stop until they get it, gloating above her as the blood drips down her face. He lunges at her and she struggles, her feet meeting resistance they don’t expect, but that’s not what happened, and she blinks, the images shifting before her.

He holds her down and she kicks out, trying to get him off.

She jolts from the dream, and it takes her a minute to realise that the pressure she can still feel around her feet is because there’s someone in the room with her, leaning over her and trying to keep her still.

She sees the knife glinting in the moonlight above her, and the white-grey furs the man wears around his shoulders.

The thing that saves her is he reaches to hold her right hand down, and doesn’t expect her left one to twist for the knife she’s tucked between the bed and the wall, slashing it across his throat as deep as she can before he’s able to bring his down.

The sound he makes burns into her memory as he staggers back, more blood than she’s ever seen soaking into his furs. Some of it splashes on her and on the bed and she scrambles backwards, trying to get away.

She feels its warmth where it touches her skin and wipes her shaking hands against the sheets clumsily, trying to get it off.

The man only manages to take another two staggering steps before he drops with one last heaving wet gasp, blood gurgling out of the hole in his throat her knife had made.

His body is still by the time it hits the floor.

She grips the handle of the knife tightly, her knuckles turning white around the hilt. There are tears running down her cheeks before she’s realised she’s crying, noisy, broken sobs forcing their way out of her throat. She draws her knees up to her chest and wraps her free arm around them, trying to put herself back together but it doesn’t really work, and her whole body jerks when her breath catches in her throat.

//

She doesn’t know how long she’s been sitting there when someone thuds against the door, but she’s not crying anymore, and she wipes the back of her right hand against her wet cheeks quickly, hiding the stains.

She realises the chair she’d wedged against the door before she went to sleep is still there and holding, and some distant part of her mind wonders how the man got in before her eyes flick over to look at the window and the way the shutters stand open to the night.

Something hits the door again, louder than before, drawing her attention back. This time the chair gives, one of the legs splintering off with the force of the blow, and she brings the knife up in front of her, in case it’s more of them.

Her hand shakes, the tip of the knife wobbling in this way that should be funny but isn’t at all.

The door bangs open. She blinks and sees Cedrik rubbing his shoulder, and then blinks again and Lexa is pushing past him with her sword drawn, eyes wild.

She freezes when she sees Clarke, and the body on the floor, and the bloodstained knife trembling in her hand.

“Clarke?” Clarke sees her come towards her in detached flashes between blinks, Lexa on one side of the room and then next to her, kneeling on the bed, the blankets dipping under her weight.

“Are you hurt?” Lexa asks, voice a little bit frantic. She hesitates for a second before reaching one hand towards Clarke’s face slowly, eyes fixed on Clarke’s like she’s asking permission. Clarke wants to say yes because maybe Lexa’s fingers against her skin might stop her from shaking, but she can’t make herself say the word out loud.

Not yet.

She stays still instead, and Lexa searches her eyes one last time before she thumbs over her cheekbone, her fingers brushing against Clarke’s jaw softly.

Something in Clarke’s stomach flips over at how gentle Lexa is, the same way she’d been before she kissed her, and tries to push the thought away.

Her eyes settle on Lexa’s lips.

“Clarke?”

She blinks and looks away.

“It’s fine,” she forces herself to say, but her voice sounds far away, and she watches Lexa’s eyes sweep her face again like she doesn’t believe her. “I killed him.”

She closes her eyes and lets herself lean into Lexa’s touch for a second, letting the warmth of her hand seep into her skin, not caring that Cedrik is probably watching them. She doesn’t deserve the comfort, but Lexa offers it and she takes it while she can.

It’s weakness, she knows, but Lexa doesn’t stop her.

“You’re safe,” Lexa whispers, and Clarke nods into her hand, unsure of who she’s trying to convince.

//

Doors bang open down the hall, and she jumps, coming back to herself.

She pulls away and wipes at her cheeks, and watches Lexa swallow, her eyes lingering on her face. Lexa looks just as dazed as Clarke feels, and she climbs to her feet shakily, going over to stand by the wall opposite the bed.

Clarke wishes she’d come back.

“Clarke?” It’s Raven, still trying to fasten one of the buckles on her brace as she lurches unsteadily towards her, panic on her face. “What happened?”

Octavia appears next, her sword clasped tightly in her hand. Monty and Monroe are behind her, and Monroe scans the room before she disappears back down the hallway, gripping her gun.

Monty hugs himself as he stares at the body on the floor and then back at Clarke, all the color draining out of his face. “Is that blood… his?”

Octavia comes over to crouch in front of Clarke and meet her eyes, her free hand finding one of Clarke’s knees, and Clarke feels the warmth of it there and nods, watching something like relief pass over Octavia’s face. She stands and paces over to look at the body, nudging it with the tip of her sword.

“The Azgeda sent an assassin,” Lexa says. Octavia turns to look at her, and Clarke thinks something passes between them that she doesn’t understand.

“Ice Nation,” Octavia says, when Raven looks at her. “Their leader was a big fan.”

“Hallway’s clear,” Bellamy says, ducking through the door with his gun over his shoulder and Monroe behind him. His eyes fix on Lexa and his expression darkens. “Now, do you want to tell me why your people sent an assassin to kill Clarke when we’re supposed to be under your protection?”

“The Ice Nation are not my people,” Lexa hisses, taking a step towards him. There’s a pause while she regains her control, and then she says, “I do not know why they attacked Clarke,” and Clarke wants to laugh because _of course she does_.

(She remembers the way the leader of the Ice Nation had looked at Lexa yesterday. And the way he’d looked at her.)

“That’s it?” Bellamy says, huffing out a disbelieving laugh. “You said we were safe. I haven’t stood watch since we got here.”

“Bellamy,” Clarke says, half a warning. Octavia puts a hand on his shoulder but he shrugs it off, shaking his head as he paces over to the door and back again.

“It will not be allowed to stand,” Lexa says, looking at Clarke as she speaks. “Guest rights are taken very seriously in Polis.”

“Yeah, it looks like it,” Raven says, kicking out at the body with her good foot. She sways dangerously, and Monty reaches out a hand to prop her up without saying anything.

It’s a really bad attempt at a joke to diffuse the tension, but Clarke almost laughs anyway, just because she doesn’t know what else to do. One of her hands trembles against the bed, and she presses it flat hoping no one will notice.

The silence starts to stretch uncomfortably but Clarke can’t think of anything she could say to break it. A wave of exhaustion hits her as all the tension she’s felt since she came awake ebbs away, and she can feel the edges of a headache starting to stab at her temples.

“I will report this to the Coalition in the morning,” Lexa says, more to Bellamy than anyone else. He nods, mouth tight, his hand twisting around the strap of his gun where it’s slung over his shoulder.

Lexa’s eyes sweep him up and down one more time before she turns away and says something to Cedrik in trigedasleng. He moves to pick the body up, swinging it up over his shoulder with a grunt.

Clarke doesn’t want to look but she does, watching the assassin’s arm swing lifelessly when Cedrik takes a step, trying to pretend she doesn’t see the way the head pitches back unnaturally because of the deep wound across his throat.

She swallows and looks away, finding Lexa watching her.

“Goodnight, Clarke,” Lexa says quietly, before she turns to follow him.

She’s almost out of the door when she pauses and turns back to Octavia. “Stay with Clarke tonight.” It’s almost but not quite an order. “I will post a guard in the street, to watch the window.”

Octavia stares at her for long moments, and Clarke thinks she’s missing out on something again. Bellamy looks between them, his eyes narrowing.

Octavia only looks at Lexa as she nods. “Yes, Heda.”

//

Octavia puts herself between Clarke and the door, now that the broken chair will no longer hold it closed. She lies next to Clarke on the bed, her body curled around Clarke’s protectively, but not too close, leaving some space between them.

Her sword is propped up next to the bed, where she can easily reach it.

Clarke knows she’s still awake as well, but she doesn’t say anything, just lies there, staring at the wall. Her thoughts don’t make sense anymore, just jumbled flashes of faces and blood, and Lexa there in the middle of it all, blinking in and out of focus.  

She can still feel the ghost of Lexa’s palm against her cheek, and it makes everything better and worse all at once.

Octavia shifts behind her, her knees brushing the back of Clarke’s legs. Warmth radiates off of Octavia’s body, and it helps in this way Clarke doesn’t understand, like she doesn’t feel so alone with Octavia almost but not quite pressed against her back like an anchor, helping to keep her here.

She hears Octavia inhale, like she’s building up to saying something, but when she speaks, it’s not the question Clarke was expecting. “Have you forgiven Lexa for what she did?”

Clarke stares at the wall, not trusting herself to speak. She knows what the answer should be, and she knows what she wants it to be, she’s just not sure what it actually is.

She remembers Lexa walking away from her, blood on her face and tears in her eyes, and remembers how lost she’d felt, how betrayed and angry and heartbroken. She knows she should still feel like that now.

But.

She huffs out a breath and rubs her hand against her cheek.

“It’s okay if you have,” Octavia says, her voice quiet in the dark of the room. “We wouldn’t think any less of you.”

Clarke can feel her jaw trembling, and she takes a shaky breath, willing her voice not to break. “I think I would.”

Clarke feels the weight on the bed shift as Octavia comes closer, her shoulder bumping into Clarke’s back. “The war is over. We have to start living like it is.”

Clarke doesn’t move, but she does reach her hand around until Octavia’s meets it, their joined hands settling just above Clarke’s hip.

“I know,” Clarke says, and for the first time, she lets herself believe it.

//  

In the morning, she finds Cedrik and tells him she wants to take a bath, and he stands guard outside the room while she takes her clothes off with shaking fingers, folding them into a neat pile by the side of the pool.

The water is warm just like she knew it would be, and she sinks into it gratefully, drawing her knees up until she’s small enough that only her head is above the water.

She takes a breath and bobs her head under, rubbing her hands against her face to get the last traces of the assassin’s blood off her skin. She doesn’t look as the red seeps into the water and disappears.

She takes another breath and then pulls her knees up to her chin, letting herself sink to the bottom. The pressure of the water in her ears blocks out all the sound, and it’s easy to pretend she’s not worth anything to anybody, that no one needs anything from her and there’s no weight on her shoulders, no expectations and no demands.

She thinks about Octavia and Bellamy, Monty, Raven, and Monroe. She thinks about her mom back in the Mountain with the rest of their people.

She thinks about Lexa, and she kicks her feet against the bottom and pushes herself up, gasping as she breaks the surface.

//

Monty comes to see her later, shifting nervously on his feet when she opens the door.

“Are you okay?” Clarke asks, just sort of by reflex, and waits for him to nod.

“Raven and I were talking,” he starts, stepping inside and closing the door behind him. “We want to know if— We want to know how long we’re staying?”

“Do you want to leave?” she asks, just because it’s better than telling him she doesn’t know.

She watches him pace over to the window and look out, his shoulders rising and falling in a shrug. “It’s not like what I expected.” He turns round, and some of the sadness that’s been there since the Mountain has faded from his eyes. “Did you see the things they have here? It’s not just— there’s no—” he cuts off, like he’s not sure how to say what he means. “It’s not just about survival here,” he says eventually, when she doesn’t say anything. “I think we could have some kind of life here.”

“Some kind?” she asks, before she can stop herself.

Monty looks down, a smile tugging at his lips. “Raven says I should open a bar, show the grounders what they’re missing. She says she could open a school, teach the kids how to build the things she can. You could draw, maybe. Or be a doctor, or teach them to be doctors. Octavia could be with Lincoln and do whatever she wants, be a warrior or have a million kids or— and Bellamy and Monroe could stop going around looking like they want to fight everyone.” He looks up to meet her eyes, “Maybe we could be happy here, Clarke.”

It’s so ridiculous, she almost wants to laugh at the idea of it, that they could go back to leading normal lives and have normal jobs, then meet up nights in Monty’s bar, drinking and laughing about the things that happened to them that day.

“It sounds nice,” she says, unable to keep the hope out of her voice.

//

Lexa’s right eye is swollen shut under her warpaint and there’s a cut in her bottom lip that’s still a little bit bloody when she comes to tell her the Ice Nation are leaving Polis and won’t be allowed to return for a year.

There’s the hint of a bruise lurking under her jaw, and Lexa holds it crookedly like it hurts not to, in this way that makes Clarke’s heart ache.

There’s a part of Clarke that wants to reach for Lexa, but she folds her arms over her chest instead. “Did he do this to you?”

Lexa just looks at her, her expression giving nothing away. “Bruises heal, Clarke.”

“At least let me look at your jaw, it might be brok—” Clarke starts to say, but Lexa shakes her head and then winces a little, like the movement made it worse.

“It’s fine.”

Clarke huffs out a breath. “At least go to a healer, Lexa.”

“I have survived worse,” she says, not meeting Clarke’s eyes, and Clarke tries not to think about what she might mean. “Please tell your people they are safe now.”

Clarke watches her walk away carefully, one hand coming up to wrap around her ribs like she’s trying to hold them together. Her breath gets more ragged with every step, and Clarke wonders how many ribs are broken for it to hurt that much. It makes something turn over, low in Clarke's stomach.

“Lexa,” Clarke calls, before she can think better of it.

Lexa stops but doesn’t turn around.

“Thank you.”

Lexa stays there for a long time, and then she nods her head before she disappears around the corner.

//

Cedrik waits for her every morning, following her silently as she explores the city, her feet carrying her further and further, revealing the city’s secrets.

She finds all kinds of things, like stalls selling beautiful things she didn’t know existed anymore, an open square where men and women perform somersaults and tumbles for the excited crowds, stalls covered in drawings that people are selling or clothes woven in intricate designs she can’t even begin to understand.

Her feet take her back to the art shop often, but she doesn’t go inside, just stares at the colors through the wall while Cedrik turns his back and examines the people in the street, pretending not to notice.

She finds a park, and balances on the edge of the dip it’s hidden in, the toes of her boots just barely brushing the grass. She can’t see across to the far edge, but she can tell from the way it curves around that she’s standing on the edge of a crater, and she tries not to think about what could have made a wound in the earth this big.

(She pushes away her memories of the ruins of Tondc.)

She feels like she’s balancing on the edge of something, and she takes a deep breath before she moves, feeling the grass give in this way she’s not used to under her boots.

There’s a pool in the center, where people sit with their legs dangling in the water, and after she glances at Cedrik and sees him smile she kicks her boots off and settles on the edge, dipping her feet in experimentally. It’s colder than she’s expecting, not quite warmed by the morning sun, but it feels good against her skin.

“I didn’t know places like this existed,” Clarke says, eventually, when they’ve sat there for a long time, and then has to look away when Cedrik looks over at her, something like sadness tinging his expression.

“Heda misses them too, when she is off in the woods,” is all he says, offering a hand to steady her when she stands.

//

Bellamy reports to her in the evenings, telling her about the places he’s found in the city, the smiths and the armories, the places where young warriors go to fight and prove their worth.

She just nods while he speaks, unsure how to reconcile the things he’s telling her with the things she’s seen.

She looks in the notebook she’d brought with her from the Mountain when he’s gone, remember him giving it to her in the white room. She leafs through the pages, past Jasper’s face done in shaky lines and portraits of her friends drawn more solidly, past trees and the sky, past loose bits of paper where she’d torn out things she didn’t want to see anymore, Lexa’s face and Jasper’s, or shaded in patterns of warpaint.

She finds the buildings she drew when she got to the city, then doodles of clan insignias she’d noticed in the meeting, and the hand that holds the charcoal hovers over one of the few blank pages she has left while she thinks about what could come next.

//

The park becomes one of her favorite places to visit, and she always comes back by the street with the art shop, ignoring the look Cedrik gives her when she slows down so she can peer in through the window.

She tries to find the girl with the jewellery again, but when she starts to retrace her steps she can’t remember the way and she doesn’t dare ask Cedrik in case he tells Lexa.

Not that she’s sure what he would even tell Lexa.

She thinks she’s going in circles, and it makes her feel anxious, the familiar weight settling on her chest. She stumbles when she takes her next step, and it makes something jolt in her stomach and then all of a sudden there are too many people in the street and she wants to get away.

She comes to a stop and forces herself to breathe evenly, hoping she’s not going to have a panic attack here, where anyone could see her. The thought makes it worse, and she exhales noisily, running a hand through her hair.

She can’t do this here.

She lets herself feel the fluttery sensation in her chest instead of trying to push it away, lets it wash over her and ebb away a little with every lungful of air she huffs out. Her hands actually listen to her and stay still by her sides, and she can feel the pendant the girl had given her under her shirt, cool where it presses against her skin, just over her heart.

She waits for her heartbeat to slow, waits for the people to not feel like they might attack her at any minute. She’s not sure how long it takes, but eventually she feels like she can breathe again.

“Come on,” she says to Cedrik, once she’s sure her voice will come out steady, “let’s go home.”

//

Two days later there’s a bundle of papers on her desk, several little pots stacked up neatly next to them, like they belong there.

She stops and stares, her fingers reaching out to touch the different colored spots on their lids.

She has a feeling she knows where they came from.

Raven and Monty are the only ones in the house when she searches her friends’ rooms, both of them hunched over some sort of schematic and talking in hushed, excited voices. Clarke hovers in the doorway watching them with a faint smile on her face, and decides she doesn’t want to know.

Both of them look happier than they have in a long time, and Clarke knocks on the door with her knuckles, trying to force the smile off her face.

“Did you see anyone come to my room?”

Raven jumps, glancing down at the schematic guiltily. “Oh. Hi Clarke.”

Monty manages to do a better job of acting natural, looking like he’s fighting the urge to roll his eyes at Raven as he says, “Did something happen?”

Clarke shakes her head, opening her hand to show them the blue paint. “There were paints and papers on my desk. I just wondered who’d left them.” She tries to make her voice sound casual only it doesn’t really work.

They both just look at her, and Clarke swallows, “But you didn’t see anyone?”

“We didn’t see her,” Monty says, while Raven shakes her head. “Sorry.”

She goes back to her room before they can see how disappointed she is and drags the supplies on to her bed, prying the lids off each pot in turn before dipping her fingers in and dragging them across the pages.

//

She always chooses the streets she hasn’t walked down yet, and she finds the doctors’ stalls for the first time days later, on the way back to the house for lunch.

Cedrik nearly bumps into her when she stops, staring at a man stitching up an awful looking wound in another man’s side, the man with the wound biting his tongue against the pain.

She can tell from here that there’s still dirt in the wound, and that the man is going to end up with a horrible jagged scar twisting around his abdomen if he doesn’t get an infection first. It’s basic first aid, and she can’t believe that the grounders don’t know it, not after what she saw in Tondc.

She thinks about her mother’s medical textbooks, burnt up in the Ark when their parents came down from the sky.

“Clarke?” Cedrik asks, placing a hesitant hand on her shoulder. She manages not to flinch but she can feel the first tremor start in her hand. “What’s wrong?”

She opens her mouth and closes it, staring at the man roughly tugging the needle and thread through skin. “Did Lexa come here after the meeting with the Ice Nation?” It’s suddenly very important that she knows the answer.

Cedrik’s face screws up in confusion. “Nyko came with us to the city, he saw to her wounds.”

She still stares at the men and Cedrik fixes her with a look that’s a little too knowing, “She is fine, Clarke.”

Clarke watches the healer wipe his hands on his bloody shirt, and isn’t sure she believes him.

//

Her hands don’t shake when she draws, now.

She waters one of the blacks down until it’s more like ink, and uses the thinnest brush she has to draw lines across the page, sketching out things she only half remembers from the Ark.

She stares at the lungs and hearts and outlines of bodies that she draws carefully, trying to remember as much detail as she can from her mother’s books. She pushes everything out of her mind as she works, focusing on drawing the lines as straight as she can and labelling everything accurately.

She thinks about Lexa when she draws an eye, and then again when she traces out a ribcage.

She hangs them up to dry around the room, until almost every surface is covered, anatomically correct images facing her every way she turns.

//

She doesn’t dream for the first time since the Mountain, and she ends up oversleeping like maybe the fact that she’s finally had some uninterrupted sleep opens the floodgate within her, and her body finally allows itself to give in to the need.

She comes awake groggily, her head aching, and it takes her a moment to realise that it was the sound of footsteps that pulled her towards consciousness.

She pushes herself up and nearly has her hand on her knife when Lexa says, “It’s me, Clarke.”

She wonders how long Lexa has stood there watching her, and it makes her anxious, thinking about the ice man she’d killed and how easy it would have been for him if he’d tried to kill her today.

She’d let herself forget too much.

“Lexa?” Clarke presses her back against the wall, trying to ignore the way her heart is trying to beat its way out of her chest. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” It comes out a little harsher than she means it to, and she winces at the sound.

Lexa’s eye is still puffy when she steps closer, her split lip starting to fade into a scar. She doesn’t hold her jaw crookedly anymore, but there’s a deep purple bruise on the left side, stretching under her chin. Clarke hates the way it marks her skin, ruining the perfect lines of her face.

Lexa rubs her hand against it self-consciously when she realises Clarke is staring.

“I thought you had left with Cedrik. I brought you these.” Lexa almost throws the bundle of papers at where Clarke sits on the bed, like she doesn’t want to risk coming any closer, and Clarke would laugh, but.

“He tells you what I do, doesn’t he,” she says after a second, her hands gathering the paper together as Lexa watches. She’s not actually mad, she just wants to make sure.

Lexa shifts on her feet, glancing at the door like she wants to bolt. “Sometimes.” She takes a breath, and her eyes flick back to Clarke’s face. “When I ask.”

“You could ask me, you know,” Clarke says, not quite able to bring herself to look at Lexa as she says it.

She glances at Lexa when she doesn’t say anything, and sees Lexa’s lower lip tremble for a second, before she gets it back under control.

“I didn’t want to push you,” Lexa says, looking down and fiddling with her belt. “I didn’t know if—” She cuts off and Clarke wonders which one of the hundred or so things she isn’t sure of is the one Lexa meant.  

“Me either,” she says, and sort of half shrugs, not looking at her.

She doesn’t trust herself to say anything else so she doesn’t elaborate, but Lexa nods across the room from her anyway, like she understands.

//

She draws for days, and Octavia blinks at the pictures on her walls, glancing at her out of the corners of her eyes when she paces the room to look at them all. “Well this isn’t creepy as hell.”

Clarke gives her a look and Octavia grins, coming over to look at what she’s drawing. A tremor goes through Clarke’s hand and she stretches her fingers out, opening and closing them around the brush.

They pass more quickly each time, now.

“We’re taking bets,” Octavia says, leafing through the pages on Clarke’s desk before Clarke can stop her, “about what it is you’re doing.”

“And?” Clarke says, sitting back in her chair so she can look up at her.

“Monty thinks you’re mapping the city. Bellamy thinks you’re trying to split the territory and get the Mountain and Camp Jaha recognized as ours.” Octavia shrugs, like she doesn’t think either of them are right.

“And you?”

“Hoping the world out there will go away,” Octavia says lightly, her fingers sliding around the hilt of the dagger pushed through her belt. “No one’s seen you for days.”

Clarke knows it’s just concern, but she fights the urge to roll her eyes at how melodramatic it sounds.

“You lost,” Clarke says, sliding a few more pages towards her. “It’s a medical textbook. For the grounders. We have to start sharing what we know, right?”

Octavia stares at the pages for a minute and then actually laughs, pushing at Clarke’s shoulder with her hands, her fingers gripping it a little before she lets go. “I guess the war really is over.”

Clarke smiles, reaching for her brush again. “Yeah,” she says, dipping it into the pot. “It is.”

It’s the first time she’s actually meant it.

//

Raven finds her sitting on a short wall in the yard behind the kitchen, watching some grounder kids practice shooting targets with bows and arrows, an older woman watching over them and giving them instruction.

Clarke silently offers Raven a hand, but Raven rolls her eyes and puts both her hands flat on the bricks so she can swing herself up, her brace bumping into the wall as she settles by Clarke’s side.

“That looks like it’s getting better,” Clarke says, gesturing at Raven’s hip. Raven shrugs.

“It doesn’t ache all the time now,” Raven says after a moment, her hand balling into a fist where it rests on her thigh. “It was just my luck they stuck the needles into the one bit of it I can still actually feel.” She sighs and lets her hand relax. “Still, it’s easier to forget it happened here.”

Clarke says nothing, just watches a girl step up to the mark and send an arrow flying down to strike the target, almost perfectly in the centre. She doesn’t look any older than ten.

“Monty told me you want him to open a bar,” Clarke says, once the silence has gone on long enough, and Raven laughs next to her.

“Good idea, right,” she says with a smirk. “The only thing this place is missing is liquor.”

“You don’t miss Wick?” Clarke says before she can stop herself, and watches the smile fade from Raven’s face.

“He knows that I—” she trails off and then glances back at Clarke, a sad smile finding its way back to her face. “He asked me why I was coming here, you know. He said we were needed in the Mountain because of the things we know and the things we could do. He said we should stay and help fix it.”

Clarke just shakes her head, knowing how it felt to be in the Mountain and how it feels out here under the sun. It wasn’t really a choice at all. “What did you tell him?”

“I told him I follow the leader of the sky people,” Raven says, bumping her shoulder against Clarke’s. “I’d pick you first, Clarke.”

“Yeah,” Clarke says thickly. She wraps an arm around Raven’s back, “You too.”

//

Lexa comes with more papers seven days later, the bruise around her jaw finally gone from her skin.

“Why do you keep doing this?” Clarke asks, when Lexa drops the paper on the desk and then turns to leave without saying anything.

Lexa only hesitates in the doorway for a second, glancing back over her shoulder to meet Clarke’s eyes.

“You know why, Clarke,” she says, before she ducks through the door.

//

She finds Octavia in the main hall, sitting at a table with Lincoln, leaning into his side. He sees her coming before Octavia does and nods, climbing to his feet to give them some privacy.

“Clarke,” he says by way of greeting, and Clarke reaches out to grip his hand tightly before he goes over to talk to two men on another table. She takes his seat.

Octavia pushes a plate of food towards her and waits for her to start eating before she speaks. “How’s the book going?”

“It’s nearly done,” Clarke says around a mouthful of bread. “At least, everything I can remember.” Her mom would know more, she knows, but she’s not quite ready to think about that yet.

Octavia nods. “When it is… will we be staying much longer?”

Clarke swallows, and reaches for the cup of water in front of Octavia. Octavia lets her take it. “Is this you asking, or…?”

Octavia looks away. “They all want to know. But I’m asking for me. Indra came to see me. She asked me if I still want to be her second. And Lincoln wants to stay for a while, now he’s earnt his freedom. He says there’s a lot of things I should see.”

“Polis isn’t anything like I thought it would be,” Clarke admits after a moment, thinking about the park and girl with the jewellery, the acrobats performing in the square and the artists she’d seen selling their work. “You should stay, if you want to.”

Octavia’s eyes narrow at the words Clarke doesn’t say, and Clarke knew she’d notice. “And you?”

Clarke shrugs, looking anywhere but at Octavia. “Someone is going to have to go back to our people and tell them about all this.”

She’d been trying not to think about it, but the closer she got to writing down everything she knew about healing, the harder it was to ignore.

Octavia’s jaw gets tight, and something like anger flashes in her eyes. “So send Bell and Monroe. It doesn’t have to be you all the time.”

Clarke just looks at her, and Octavia shakes her head. “You don’t have to do everything alone.”

“I know,” Clarke says quickly, because it’s not about that, not after the things her friends have done for her. “But you could be happy here.”

Octavia just fixes her with a look, and it takes everything in Clarke not to look away. “So could you.”

Clarke swallows, and tries to push away the images that spring into her head, the same ones she sees in her dreams at night, of Lexa and—

“Maybe,” she says quietly, staring down at her hands, flat against the table.    

Octavia reaches to cover them with one of her own, “We all deserve it, Clarke.”

Clarke pulls her hands away, trying not to see the disappointment in Octavia’s eyes when she stands. “Tell Lincoln to show you the city,” she says, past the lump in her throat. “You’ve got time.”

“We both have,” Octavia calls after her as she walks away, and Clarke tries not to hear it.

//

She has trouble sleeping, sometimes.

It’s been a long time since she dreamt of the Mountain or the battle, but she dreams of Lexa almost every night, and that’s worse somehow, even though the dreams are of an entirely different kind.

She sits on her bed with her back pressed against the wall and her knees drawn up to her chest, fiddling with the chain around her neck, opening and closing her hand around the pendant over and over again.

This can’t last forever, and sooner or later they’ll have to go back to their people and tell them that they have peace with the grounders, and they’ll need to stay and help their people adjust to life on the ground.

She tightens her hand around the pendant, until it feels like the corners are starting to cut into her skin.

She has to go back and finish what she started, and she knows it’s getting closer and closer and there’s nothing she can do to stop it.

She closes her eyes and dips her head until her forehead bumps against her knees.

She dreams about Lexa.

//

The fourth time Lexa brings her paper Clarke meets her in the hallway, forcing herself not to laugh at the way Lexa’s mouth falls open in surprise when she sees her waiting, like she thought Clarke wouldn’t know she was coming.

“Clarke,” she says, like it’s a question.

Clarke has to take a steadying breath before she speaks, but her voice comes out level enough once she starts. “I was just on my way out. Will you— would you like to come with me?”

Lexa’s mouth opens and then closes, and she nods hesitantly, her expression guarded. “Yes,” she says slowly, “I would like that, Clarke.”

Clarke takes the paper from Lexa’s hands, trying to ignore the way they almost shake when Lexa lets go, and goes to put it on her desk.

When she comes back, Lexa turns to look at her with a slow shy smile that tugs at something in Clarke’s chest, and Clarke has to look away, almost abandoning the whole idea.

She lets out a shaky breath and makes herself stay.

“Where do you want to go?” Lexa asks, once they get outside, and Clarke shrugs as she blinks against the sunlight, not sure how to tell her that the destination isn’t really the important part.

“Show me something I haven’t seen before,” Clarke says, and Lexa searches her face for a moment before she nods and leads the way.

//

Lexa takes her to a marble building on the edge of town, roughly patched up with bricks and pieces of metal. It’s huge, and Clarke comes to a stop on the steps and looks up, trying to take it all in.

Lexa watches her nervously, her fingers playing with one of the buckles around her waist. “Some of this is from before,” she says, when she realises Clarke is watching her, and Clarke doesn’t need her to ask her what she means to know the missing words in that sentence.

“There used to be a city here,” Lexa says, “a huge metropolis.” She shrugs, “Or at least that’s what the stories say.” She climbs a couple of the steps and then turns to look back at Clarke. “Do you want to come inside?”

Clarke doesn’t move, and Lexa swallows. “It’s safe, I promise.”

Her feet carry her up without her actually telling them to, and she follows Lexa into the building, shivering a little as they step out of the sun and into cold marble.

She stops again when she realises what she’s looking at, her eyes widening in surprise. There are books everywhere, stacked up on shelves and on tables, filling every available space. She’s never seen so many in one place before, never seen so much paper since everything her people’s ancestors had thought worth saving had found it’s way onto the Ark’s computers and tablets.

She trails her fingers across the shelf nearest to her, aching to touch them all.

“It’s everything the clans have ever found,” Lexa says, watching her. “Everything left from before.”

Clarke steps over to a table to flip open one of the books, her fingers skipping over the pages reverently, unable to keep the smile off her face. “This is amazing,” she says earnestly, and watches Lexa’s eyes skip over her face, like she’s trying to fix the smile in her memory. It makes her self-conscious, and she turns to pluck a book off the nearest shelf to her, tugging at the shorter side of her hair to try and get it to sit straight.

“I knew you’d like it,” Lexa says behind her. “I used to come here sometimes and read, when I needed to escape.”

She doesn’t specify when, but Clarke has a pretty good idea of what she means. She nods without turning around. “Did you have a favorite book? That you used to read when you were here?” She’s not sure what makes her ask, but she thinks maybe it would help her understand what Lexa was doing while she was in the Mountain.

It never actually occurred to her that she might have been hurting too.

Lexa quirks the corner of her mouth up into a half smile. “The commander should be well read, Clarke. I could not afford to reread the same book over and over.”

Clarke shakes her head, wanting to roll her eyes. “Everyone has a favourite book, Lexa.”

Lexa doesn’t say anything, but she turns and walks further into the shelves, disappearing from Clarke’s view. Clarke finds her in the corner of one of the rooms, clutching a heavy looking book in her hands. It’s got a ragged dust jacket around it, and Lexa offers it to her carefully, eyeing the way Clarke takes it from her.

“I read this a lot. Before.” Clarke glances down at the cover and doesn’t have to ask her when she means.

“The Collected Stories of Arthur C.—” Clarke almost laughs and looks up to meet Lexa’s eyes. “We had some of his stories on the Ark. My dad liked them a lot.”

“You were named for him?” Lexa asks, and Clarke nods, but then thinks better of it and shrugs instead.

“Maybe. I don’t know.”

“They sent you down here to explore the new world,” Lexa says softly, “I think maybe they did.”

They sent me down here to die, Clarke thinks, but says nothing, just props the book up on her right arm so she can flip through it with her left. The pages are yellowed and brittle, and she imagines Lexa in the days since the war, curled up on the floor between bookcases, clutching the pages carefully when she’d wanted to escape from her responsibilities.

She gets that ache in her chest again, and pulls the book a little tighter against her, feeling it push the pendant she wears under her shirt into her skin.

“Thank you,” Clarke says, “for showing me this.” She could mean the book or the library, and Lexa nods like she knows which it is. “I think I might stay and read for a while.”

Lexa takes a step away like she’s been dismissed and then stops, turning back to her. “You can find your way back to the house?”

“You don’t have to go,” Clarke says quickly, before she can think better of it. She can’t quite bring herself to look at Lexa when she says it.

Lexa shifts on her feet, and Clarke holds her breath while she waits for Lexa to nod.

Lexa pulls a book off the shelf without even looking at it, and then turns deeper into the library, glancing back over her shoulder to make sure Clarke is following.

Lexa leads them through another two rooms, past warm patches of sunlight streaming through windows, to where there’s an old couch and a couple of chairs huddled together between the shelves, but she ignores the furniture and sinks down to the floor, pressing her back against the only bit of wall visible between the bookcases, leaning against one as she draws her knees up to her chest.

“There’s a couch right there, Lexa,” Clarke says with a laugh, pointing at it like she’s trying to prove her point, but Lexa just shakes her head.

“No one will see us down here,” she says, and something in Clarke understands what she means.

The bricks are cold against Clarke’s back, but Lexa is warm by her side when she fits herself into the only bit of space left. She kicks her legs out in front of her, crossing one foot over the other at her ankles.

“I used to sit here and wish you were with me,” Lexa says after a moment, staring down at the book she holds. She shifts against Clarke’s side, and Clarke reaches out to touch her hand, her fingers settling over Lexa’s where they rest on top of the book.

Lexa looks at her and swallows, her thumb coming up to rub against Clarke’s skin gently, and Clarke feels like Lexa is seeing all the secret things she’s tried to keep hidden since the battle and the Mountain.

(Clarke thinks Lexa can see how much she wants this.)

She huffs out a breath and looks away, at the books opposite them and the ratty old couch Lexa didn’t want them to sit on. The marble is cold underneath her, but Lexa is so warm by her side.

They sit there a long time, the closed books heavy in their laps.

(She knows there’s still so much left unsaid between them, about what happened at the Mountain and what happened since. She knows it’s not as easy as this, but.)

“This is a pretty good place to escape to,” Clarke says eventually and feels Lexa nod, where her head rests against hers.

“It’s better now,” Lexa mumbles into her hair.

Clarke tries to pretend she doesn’t feel it, but it’s too hard when they’re sitting like this, away from the rest of the world and their responsibilities, and after a second she sighs out, “Yeah,” hardly above a whisper.

She knows Lexa hears her.

//

They walk back to the house in comfortable silence, their shoulders bumping every now and then when they have to move closer to dodge between people in the streets.

Neither of them are dressed in anything that marks them out as the Commander or the leader of the sky people, and Clarke enjoys the anonymity of it, like they could be any two teenagers going home after a day in the city.

It feels like it’s been a long time since she was able to go somewhere and have no one recognise her.

It’s easy to pretend when Lexa half smiles at her after she catches Clarke looking at her for the third time, and Clarke tries to lean into the feeling before it disappears, just in case she doesn’t find it again.

//

Cedrik waits for them by the door, and his eyes sweep over them both quickly, like he’s checking they haven’t gotten themselves into trouble while he wasn’t there.

“Heda,” he says, inclining his head, “Clarke.”

The corners of Lexa’s mouth twitch like she wants to smile. “We survived without you, Cedrik.”

“Yes Heda,” Cedrik agrees, his eyes flicking between them with something like approval, but whether it’s because they’re both fine or because they’re no longer acting like they can’t stand to be around each other, Clarke doesn’t know.

“Will Clarke and her people be joining you at the festival tonight, Heda?” Cedrik says, his face carefully blank, and Clarke thinks Lexa actually colors a little, a faint blush appearing on her cheeks.

“Festival?” Clarke asks, looking between them.

Cedrik’s face doesn’t change, but he looks like he’s trying to avoid Lexa’s eyes.

“It is the mid-summer festival tonight. There will be a celebration in the main square,” Lexa says. She swallows, her eyes fixed on Clarke’s face. “The skaikru are welcome to attend.”

Lexa looks like she’s holding her breath, like she wants to know Clarke’s answer and doesn’t at the same time, and Clarke thinks it’s stupid that this makes her nervous, when she’s spent most of her life in battle, leading an army of men and women twice her size.

“I’ll let them know,” Clarke says, because Lexa didn’t actually ask her a question, and watches Lexa nod, her jaw tight.

After a second, Lexa turns to leave, Cedrik falling into step behind her shoulder. Clarke changes her mind when Lexa’s almost disappeared through the doorway, and she takes a couple of quick steps to catch her up. “Lexa,” she calls. Lexa stops and half turns towards her. “I’ll see you there.”

She only half-sees the smile on Lexa’s face, because Lexa tries to turn back into the house to hide it, but Clarke feels something flip over low in her stomach in response, and tries to paint it into her memory in case she never sees it again.

//

She only owns two shirts, and she stares at them both for a long time before deciding to pull on the grey one, just because it doesn’t have quite as many holes in it as the other. The sleeves are long, and she pushes them up until they bunch around her elbows, trying not to notice the scars that litter her arms.

Her hair is as messy as ever, and she tries to pull it back and tie it up before realising the shorter side won’t reach and letting it fall back down. She combs her fingers through it, and suspects she’s making it worse.

It’s so hot she can’t stand to put her coat on so she doesn’t, but she tugs the pendant out of her shirt and holds it in her hand for a moment, watching the sunlight play across the surface of the metal.

She’s going to hide it away again when she stops and lets it go to swing down and settle against her.

_Clarke of the sky people_ , she thinks, and leaves it there.

//

Raven and Monty come to her room just before they leave, both of them glancing out into the hallway before they shut the door, like they’re concerned someone’s watching.

“We got you a present,” Monty says quietly, around a grin.

“Don’t drink it all at once,” Raven says, as she presses the bottle into her hands. When Clarke holds it up, a colorless liquid sloshes against the glass.

“Green Raven liquor,” Raven says with a smile, half-pulling another bottle from the inside of her coat before tucking it carefully back in. “Finest in Polis.”

“Does it explode?” Clarke asks lightly, and then laughs at the offended look on Raven’s face.

“I helped with that,” Monty says, unscrewing his own bottle and offering it to her, and Clarke only hesitates for a second before she takes it.

She holds the bottle up like she’s toasting, and it takes her a second to think of what she should say. “To the future,” she says, and manages to make it not sound like a question.

She takes a long pull, feeling the burn before it gives way to warmth she feels all the way down her throat.

She hands it off to Raven and watches her drink, before Monty takes it and does the same.

“To my future bar,” Monty says solemnly as he screws the cap back on, and then laughs at the way Raven rolls her eyes as she turns to duck through the door.

Clarke tucks the bottle into her belt, where her gun usually is, before she follows.

//

The festival is like nothing she’s ever seen.

There are brightly colored decorations everywhere, streams of paper hanging from the stalls and buildings, bunches of fresh flowers in all sorts of different containers, people with intricate patterns drawn on their faces instead of warpaint.

Clarke weaves through the people and sips at the bottle Raven and Monty had given her, finding her friends and then losing them again.

Octavia comes to show her the matching designs she and Lincoln have had drawn on their faces, vines and branches with flowers at the corners of their eyes, and Clarke grins when Octavia asks them how she looks, wrapping an arm around Lincoln’s neck to pull him down to her level.

Monty and Raven eat some sweet sticky mess of honey and oats, and they give her some and ask her if they think they should get the recipe so they could serve it at their bar.

“Absolutely,” she says, as she wolfs it down, and then clinks her bottle against theirs before she leaves them arguing over whether to get some more.

“It’s for science,” Monty says, super sincere and Clarke cracks up, nearly spitting out her drink.

She feels the warm glow of the liquor in her stomach when she finds Bellamy and Monroe playing some game where you have to throw rocks at little wooden cylinders, and whoever knocks the most off wins. Bellamy has pretty good aim, and Clarke laughs and pushes him away when he tries to give her the stones—”Come on, princess,”—because everything is starting to blur at the edges and she’s not sure she should let everyone see the leader of the sky people throwing like she can’t see what she’s aiming at.

Octavia sees her with the bottle and tries to take it from her, and Clarke runs, giggling as she dodges around a crowd of people watching acrobats perform, losing Octavia in the crush.

//

A little girl sees her pendant when it swings and catches the sun, and she crouches down so the girl can see, her finger sliding against it. “Yu kom skaikru?” the girl says, and Clarke nods, pointing upwards.

“I came from up there,” she doesn’t know if the girl understands her but she keeps talking anyway, “and came all the way down here to play with you.” She tickles the girl’s sides and she starts to laugh, squirming to get away.

Clarke stays with her a long time, playing at clapping their hands together and laughing at the acrobats and performers, before her father comes to claim her, holding out his hand to shake Clarke’s. “Thank you,” he says, in accented English, “you didn’t have to do this.”

“I did,” Clarke says, not really caring that he won’t understand why, and waves as they disappear back into the crowd.

//

It’s dark by the time Lexa finds her, torches starting to spark into life around them so the party can carry on.

She’s drank almost two thirds of the bottle Monty and Raven had given her, but it’s not the liquor that makes her stop and stare at the way the light glints off the flowers woven into Lexa’s hair, perfectly matching the intricate patterns of leaves someone has drawn across her eyes, where her warpaint usually is.

She has none of her armor on, just a simple long sleeve shirt pushed up her arm on one side, and she looks so young Clarke almost can’t stand it. She looks nothing like the Commander she first met in a tent in the woods.

She looks like the sort of girl Clarke might have loved before all of this happened, and she smooths her hands down the front of her shirt nervously, running a hand through the shorter side of her hair.

“Hello, Clarke.”

Clarke takes a couple of steps towards Lexa before she knows what she’s doing, and Lexa waits for her, the ghost of a smile on her face.

“Lexa,” she says, coming to a stop in front of her.

They stare at each other for a long time, and Clarke tries to shake some of the fuzziness from her brain.

“Show me the festival,” she says, and waits for Lexa to nod.

//

Lexa takes her to watch the performers and acrobats, and Clarke feels the pleasant buzz of the liquor in her system as she watches them, trying to keep herself from swaying too heavily into Lexa’s side in the crowd.

Lexa glances at her out of the corners of her eyes every time Clarke bumps into her, and Clarke starts to laugh, tugging the bottle out of her pants.

“From Raven and Monty.” She says, “drink,” and Lexa does, her nose wrinkling against the taste.

“That is awful, Clarke,” she says, eyeing the bottle like it might attack her.

“It gets better,” Clarke says, pulling the bottle from her hands so she can take another mouthful.

Lexa watches her, and half laughs as she says, “I’m not sure I believe you.”

Clarke holds the bottle out to her, waiting for Lexa to take it. “Everything does.”

Lexa huffs out a breath when she takes it from her, her fingers brushing Clarke’s when they settle around the bottle. She coughs a little once she’s swallowed it. “This is what your people do to celebrate something?” Lexa asks, handing the bottle back and watching Clarke tuck it away in her belt. “Poison yourselves?”

“It’s not that toxic,” Clarke says, deadpan and watches Lexa’s eyes widen in alarm.

“It’s okay,” Clarke says before Lexa can say anything, reaching out a hand to her, her fingers brushing against Lexa’s arm without her really meaning them to. Lexa looks down at Clarke’s hand but doesn’t move away. “It’s safe, I promise.”

It’s the same thing Lexa had said to her at the library, and after a second Lexa nods. “I trust you, Clarke.” Her voice is soft, and something about the way she says it makes Clarke wish she hadn’t had so much to drink.

She doesn’t know what to say, so she just fumbles to unscrew the bottle cap with hands that shake, and pretends she doesn’t see Lexa watch them do it.

Lexa shakes her head when she offers her the bottle, and Clarke drinks again, feeling it burn all the way down her throat.

“Come on,” Lexa says, once Clarke has managed to get the cap back on. “There is more to see.”

“Okay,” Clarke says, and follows her into the crowd.

//

Clarke doesn’t notice if there’s some kind of signal, but the torches burn out and people start to leave, the crowd thinning out. She looks for her friends but doesn’t see them, and when Lexa says, “it’s time to go home,” Clarke shakes her head and reaches for her arm, tugging her along with her as she strides into the darkness.

“Not yet,” Clarke says, and Lexa follows her wordlessly, always half a step behind.

Lexa doesn’t ask where they’re going, but she probably knows the city well enough to know, so Clarke doesn’t tell her, just keeps walking until she feels grass under her feet.

It seems to take a long time to get to the park, the shadows lengthening around them as they walk. Clarke leads them to the edge of the pool and comes to a stop, watching the moonlight glance off the water.

Lexa looks all around them but says nothing, just hovers by Clarke’s side, warm and solid in the darkness.

Clarke’s not really sure what comes next.

She wants to tell Lexa that this is her favorite place in the city, or that she doesn’t think about what happened at the Mountain door anymore, or that she keeps dreaming about things that she thinks they both want and that Monty wants to open a bar.

She wants to thank her for tonight, and tell her than it’s the first time in a long time that she’s felt like nobody needed anything from her but for her to be herself.

She doesn’t know how, but she turns into Lexa to try, swaying a little from the alcohol in her system. Lexa’s hand comes up to her elbow to steady her automatically, and something in Clarke’s stomach flips over, and then she’s lurching forward to close the gap between them.

Lexa’s lips are warm against hers, and she’s gentle like she was before the battle, her fingers coming up to brush against Clarke’s jaw. Lexa sighs into her and Clarke thinks it feels like some weight Lexa’s been carrying has been lifted off her shoulders when her whole body relaxes into the kiss.

She didn’t mean to do this, but Lexa tastes like honey when Clarke licks into her mouth, and she shivers as Lexa whimpers against her lips and curls her fingers into Clarke’s hair in response.

Lexa kisses her like she never thought she would again, and Clarke presses a hand into the small of her back to pull her closer, nudging her forehead against Lexa’s as she kisses her again.

Lexa’s hand moves until her fingers rest against the shortest bit of Clarke’s hair, and it makes something in Clarke’s chest twist when she thinks about Lexa touching the scars on her scalp, where her mother had to cut her open and put her back together again. It feels like the floor lurches under her feet, and she pulls away and shakes her head, until Lexa’s hands fall back down by her sides.

They’re both breathing hard, and she watches Lexa clench her jaw, her eyes searching Clarke’s face.  The paint on her face makes the green in her eyes stand out, shining in the moonlight. There’s a tiny part of it smudged by her nose, where Clarke’s has rubbed against it.

Clarke thinks Lexa looks scared, and she feels a lot more sober than she did a minute ago, but she still has to blink and look away, forcing herself to breathe evenly as she swallows against the lump in her throat.

She needs to say something, but Lexa beats her to it.

“I’m sorry, Clarke,” Lexa whispers, her voice a little unsteady, and Clarke doesn’t know if she means for the kiss or—

She pushes the rest of the thought away. “No, I shouldn’t have—” her voice threatens to break, and she cuts off.

Lexa doesn’t move, just looks at her in that way that feels like she’s seeing right through to Clarke’s soul.   

“Do you ever wish we could just be this?” Clarke says, once the silence has gone on for long enough. She thinks it must be Raven and Monty’s gift that makes her say it, but she feels something loosen in her chest once she has.

“Yes,” Lexa says, with something Clarke thinks is supposed to be a laugh. “But leadership demands sacrifice, and our people come first. It doesn’t matter what I wish.”

There’s a sadness in Lexa’s voice that makes Clarke want to turn and run away, but she keeps her feet planted to the ground.

“It should,” Clarke says, but she’s not entirely sure which one of them she’s trying to convince.

She can still taste honey in her mouth, and she folds her arms over her chest, just to stop herself from reaching for Lexa again. She can feel her hands trembling, and she waits for it to pass.

“Yes,” Lexa says again, meeting her eyes, but this time she doesn’t add anything else.


	4. Chapter 4

It’s so quiet she can hear Clarke breathing in the darkness, and she doesn’t dare move in case it jolts her from the dream she’s sure she must be having.

There’s no other explanation for the way Clarke is looking at her, or for the way she kissed her, mouth warm and open against hers. She can still feel it, and she presses her lips together, trying to savor it.

Clarke shifts her weight from one side to the other with a sigh, and Lexa tries not to stare at the way it makes her hip jut out. “I don’t want to go back,” Clarke says softly, like it’s a confession.  

Lexa feels the words deep in her bones. “There is still a few hours until sunrise. We don’t have to yet.”

Clarke looks at her for a long moment like she’s searching for something, and Lexa wonders if there is some meaning behind the words that she’s missed.

She’s not sure she understands anything anymore, so she just takes a step closer, her shoulder bumping against Clarke’s.

Without her armor, she can feel the warmth of Clarke’s skin through the thin shirt she wears.

After a second, Clarke sighs and leans into her. “It’s so beautiful here,” she says, and Lexa nods watching Clarke watch the water.

“Yes,” she agrees.

//

It’s nearly dawn when they start back to the house,  and Clarke’s steps turn unsteady as they walk, until she’s stumbling at the door and swaying dangerously on the stairs up to her room.

“Clarke,” Lexa says, reaching an arm out to steady her. “Are you hurt?”

Clarke huffs out a laugh and shakes her head. “It’s the drink.”

“Poison,” Lexa says, with a half smile that Clarke returns. She feels it warm her and keeps talking, sliding an arm around Clarke to help her up the stairs. “The skaikru drink poison just for fun,” she says, and watches Clarke’s smile widen. “Our children already think you’re mythical.”

“Do they?” Clarke asks, swaying into her. Lexa grips Clarke a little tighter, almost completely carrying her weight.

Lexa’s sure they’re both pretending not to notice.

“You came down from the sky and survived attack after attack from my warriors, even though at first you had no weapons.”

“We had Raven,” Clarke says, pushing at the door to her room.

“You broke out from the Mountain, even though no one has before.”

Clarke glances at her out of the corner of her eye. “With Anya.”

Lexa nods, remembering what Clarke had told her when they first met. She’s still not sure she’s ready to hear the full story. “The Reaper drug stopped Lincoln’s heart but you made it work again, and turned him back into a man.”

Lexa carries her over to the bed, Clarke swaying into her side with each step she tries to take. Clarke falls backwards, landing with a thud even as she shakes her head. “My mom did that… and he did.”

“You beat the Maunon,” Lexa says, “when we had failed for a hundred years.”

Clarke opens her mouth but no words come out, and Lexa clenches her jaw, wondering what made her say it.

She knows this only works if they don’t talk about before, and she wonders if she’s ruined it again before the second chance has even started.

“I’m sor—” she starts to say, but Clarke interrupts her.

“Would you have killed them all, if you had the chance?” she speaks urgently, sitting up to pull at Lexa’s arm.

“Yes,” Lexa says immediately, then looks away from Clarke’s wide eyes. “No.” She shrugs. “I did not have the chance, Clarke.”

“I did,” Clarke swallows, the sadness returning to her eyes. “And I let them surrender. And when I left my mother was asking for blood marrow donors.” She shakes her head, and her voice gets tight. “After what they did…”

“War turns us into people we don’t want to be,” Lexa says softly, and when Clarke turns to look at her she knows they’re both thinking about the Mountain door. She has to force herself to hold Clarke’s gaze as the shame burns in her chest. “You did not let it.”

Clarke just shakes her head. “Maybe I should have,” she says hoarsely and Lexa’s heart almost breaks all over again at the look on her face, for this gentle girl forced to do terrible things in the middle of a war, who worries that she wasn’t terrible enough.

“It isn’t worth it,” she breathes, thinking about the weeks before Clarke had arrived in Polis, how much she hated herself for saving her people. She takes another quick step back. “Goodnight, Clarke.”

She’s almost at the door when Clarke calls out her name and she stops, but she can’t make herself turn around, and she squeezes her hands into fists, waiting.

“The war is over, isn’t it?” Clarke’s voice sounds so vulnerable she can’t stand it, and she glances back over her shoulder, swallowing past the lump in her throat.

“Yes,” she says quickly, and watches something like relief spread over Clarke’s face. “It is over.”

“Then we get to be who we want to be now.”

It’s not that simple, but Lexa lets herself believe it could be, just for a second.

She crosses the room in three quick paces and cups Clarke’s face in her hands, her thumbs stroking over the scars on her skin. Clarke leans up to meet her when she bends down, her left hand coming up to press against Lexa’s elbow.

The kiss is chaste, soft and close-mouthed, and something about it reminds Lexa of the first time she kissed Clarke, in her tent before the battle, the knot of anxiety in her chest threatening to overwhelm her.

But she doesn’t feel anxious now, and she breaks the kiss to rest her forehead against Clarke’s, feeling Clarke’s shaky breath against her lips.

Clarke’s hand is warm on her elbow, trying to urge her forward again.

“Goodnight Clarke,” she says again, as she forces herself to pull away.

Clarke watches her go, her eyes shining in the gloom as she presses her hands flat against the bed to hold herself up.

“Goodnight Lexa.”

//

Bellamy is waiting for her in the hallway, and she just looks at him, waiting for him to say whatever it is he wants to.

“Is Clarke okay?” he says, and she nods, keeping her face blank.

“She drank something Raven and Monty made. She assures me she will be fine by the morning.”

Bellamy looks like he want to laugh, but his jaw tightens like he’s trying to stop himself. They stare at each other and then he says, “Listen, I’m not going to pretend I’m Clarke’s keeper or something, she doesn’t need anyone to take care of her and she’s big enough to make her own decisions but you should know that I remember what you did at the Mountain even if Clarke has forgiven you for it. I remember what it did to Clarke on top of everything else that happened that day.”

“Is there a point to this, Bellamy,” she says, folding her arms across her chest to try and stop the ache there. It doesn’t really help, but she’s not going to wilt under his gaze so she stands straight and waits for him to answer.

His expression darkens. “We won’t be staying in Polis forever,” he says, and Lexa remembers Clarke saying she didn’t want to go back when they were in the park and wonders if this is what she meant. “Clarke’s already had to deal with more than anyone should. Don’t pretend you can be something you can’t.”

It’s not exactly a threat, but his voice is hard and it makes something in Lexa bristle. She wishes she still had her knife, just so her hand had something to grip.

“And what are you pretending to be Bellamy?”

She hits a nerve because his jaw clenches again as he glares at her. “I’m her friend,” he says, emphasising the word a little. She scoffs and his eyes narrow. “How about you?”

 _Someone who didn’t betray her_ , she thinks but what she says is, “I am what I am.”

“Does Clarke know that?”

Clarke has always known that, but Lexa isn’t sure how to tell him.

//

Cedrik is leaning against the wall opposite her room when she gets back, his eyes half closed as he breathes deeply. The festival paint he wears on his face has smudged by his nose, and Lexa wonders who did it before she realises hers probably looks the same way.

She resists the urge to rub at it self-consciously.

He doesn’t stir as she approaches, and she moves silently, grabbing him quickly as he jerks awake in surprise. He swings at her lazily and she ducks under it, dodging over to the other side of the hallway.

“I trust you to protect me,” she says flatly, and watches Cedrik blink the sleep from his eyes.

“I am sorry, Heda,” he says once he’s straightened up and smoothed his hands down his shirt. He checks his sword is still in its scabbard, his eyes sweeping her up and down.

His eyes linger on the paint by her nose. “I thought you might not be back tonight.”

She ignores the suggestion in his voice and pushes at her door. “Was that a question?”

“No, Heda.” He’s silent for a moment before he tries again. “Did you find Clarke of the sky people at the festival?”

“Yes,” Lexa says, looking away from the smile he’s trying to hide. “Goodnight, Cedrik,” she adds, before he can say anything else.

She manages to keep the smile off her own face until the door is closed, and then she crosses the room to look at her paint in the mirror propped up next to her bed, her fingers hovering over the smeared lines on her skin.

She remembers the ghost of it on Clarke’s nose, and wonders if she’ll think to check for it in the morning.

She doesn’t want to wipe it off but she does, dipping the cloth into the water bowl and squeezing it out before she dabs at her skin. The green and gold fades into the water, different from the colors she usually sees there.

She likes the difference, and she tugs her outer clothes off when she’s done and eases herself into bed, watching the sun rise through the gap in the shutters.

She feels like the weight she’d grown used to carrying around with her had been eased up from her shoulders even if it hasn’t gone completely, and she presses her trembling fingers against her lips, remembering Clarke’s kiss as she slides towards sleep.

//

She wakes up because someone is knocking on her door, and she squints at the sliver of sunlight coming through the shutters as she pushes herself up and wipes a hand over her face. She hasn’t slept so late since she was a child, and she crosses the room to pull the door open slowly, trying to shake the sleep from her limbs.

Indra’s eyes slide up and down slowly, and Lexa straightens reflexively, drawing herself up to her full height. “What is it Indra?”

“Heda, there has been an accident at the docks. The floudonkru have sent a request for help. The market has been damaged and—”

“And trade suffers throughout Polis,” Lexa finishes for her. “You did not need to bother me with this, of course the clans will help.”

“Yes, Heda,” Indra says, looking past her. She looks like she’s looking for someone and Lexa looks at her sharply until Indra meets her eyes. “I thought you should be informed; the city will suffer until the market is rebuilt.”

It feels like a long time since she’s had to make a decision about something so simple, and she turns back into her room to find fresh clothes. “I will be there as soon as I can.”

“Heda, there will be enough volunteers once the word goes out,” Indra protests but Lexa shakes her head.

“They are my people, Indra. I will help.”

//

She doesn’t cloak her eyes in warpaint, but she does pull on some of her armor, the straps and fastens that go around her legs and arms helping remind her who she is.

Cedrik isn’t in the house so Indra follows her to the docks, Octavia trailing after her with her sword on her back and smears of paint over each eye. Lexa pretends to ignore the way Octavia glances at her with the hint of a smile at the corner of her mouth.

She wonders if Octavia saw Clarke this morning, and resists the urge to run a hand over her face self-consciously, just in case there’s a smudge of paint she missed.

“Good morning, Heda,” Octavia says, when she realises Lexa is looking at her. Her voice is neutral, tinged with respect, but something mischievous flashes in her eyes.

Lexa just nods, and quickens her pace.

//

When they get to the docks the market is still on fire.

The flames are dying down, but the wreckage smoulders, and Lexa can just make out what looks like the prow of one of the boat people’s scouting ships sinking beneath the water.

The warriors she sent ahead of her are mixed in with the blues of the boat people’s clothes, carrying buckets of water and pulling people out of the wreckage. It reminds her of Tondc, and she tries to push the thought away as she watches a woman stagger out from what used to be the market, dragging another woman’s unconscious body with her.

“What happened?” Octavia says, taking a step towards the smouldering building. She seems to remember she needs to wait for orders and stops to turn back to the both of them.

Indra gives her a hard look, but Lexa answers. “The boat that sinks in the harbor is one of the scouting ships. They carry weapons, including oil for burning.”

“It crashed into that building?”

Lexa shrugs. “Fire spreads, and the market is on fire.”

Octavia looks between them, and when neither of them moves, she huffs out a breath. “What are we waiting for?”

Indra moves to stand in front of her, her hand resting on her sword. “What would you have us do?”

“Help them,” Octavia says immediately, like it’s obvious, but Lexa knows it is not that simple.

“How,” Indra says, unmoving.

She remembers Anya asking her similar questions when she had been young. It felt like it took years, but she learned not to act without thinking. Octavia’s eyes sweep the scene in front of them, and Lexa knows she will too.

It takes Octavia a moment but then she says, “Split the workers. One team to find survivors and another to fight the fire. The people on fire duty need to be better organised. Work as a team, form a chain and pass the water down the line.”

Indra nods, and strolls off without another word to do as Octavia says.

Lexa watches a slow smile bloom on Octavia’s face before she runs after her, eager to help.

//

She takes her place in the chain of people with the water, somewhere near the end, where she has to keep stooping to fill the buckets with water from the edge of the dock. It makes the scars across her back ache, and she feels something in her ribs pull each time she stands.

Her people call out for more water so she gives it to them, watching bucket after bucket disappear down the line.

She loses track of how long she’s been working when word comes back that all the fires are out, and when she stands from where she’s been crouching at the end of the dock she sways on her feet, blinking against the light.

The sun is high overhead, and she realises for the first time just how hot it is, the buckles around her legs chafing in the heat. She takes a step and feels dizzy, and forces herself to stop, waiting for it to pass.

The woman next to her puts a hand on her arm to steady her, and when Lexa looks at her she sees dark skin and darker hair that she hasn’t seen in a long time.

Her breath catches in her throat.

She finds familiar brown eyes so deep she thinks she might disappear into them.

Lexa shakes her head, and when she opens her eyes again the vision in front of her has disappeared, replaced by a woman a few years older than her, with skin and hair and eyes in slightly different shades than the ones she thought she saw.

She takes a stumbling step closer and plants her feet to steady herself.

“Heda, are you well?”

She blinks against the sunlight glinting off the water, looking for hints of the face she saw in the woman’s.

“I thought I saw—” she says, cutting off as she lifts a hand to shade her eyes. The sweat on her brow feels hot and clammy against her hand.

The woman looks over her shoulder and then back again, and Lexa schools her features, keeping her face blank. “I was mistaken,” she adds, voice as flat as she can manage.

Someone presses a cup of water into her hand and she squeezes her eyes shut for a second, trying to push the old feelings away.

“Drink, Heda. You have been in the sun too long.”

She cradles the cup between her fingers and stares into it, wondering if she refused to the vision of Costia would come back. It’s been three years, but the part of her she thought she’d killed rears up inside her, as heartbroken as the day the Queen of the Azgeda had sent her Costia’s head.

“Beja, Heda,” the woman says, and Lexa presses the cup to her lips, feeling the cold water all the way down her throat.

//

She retreats to the makeshift tents the healers have set up, and makes herself busy, trying to push the vision of Costia out of her mind.

She tends to the wounded and feels like she’s helping, if only for a second.

She stays there until Octavia carries in the lifeless body of a young woman, blonde hair spilling over Octavia’s arm, and then the things she’s been trying not to think about since she saw Bellamy that morning threaten to overwhelm her.

She pushes through the tent door and out into the street where people mill around the wreckage and comes to a stop, spinning on the spot as she decides which way to go.

No one notices her, and she ducks her head as she turns and runs back towards the city.

//

She rips her armor off when she gets back to her room, throwing it so it lands near the chest that holds her few belongings. She doesn’t feel like she can breathe any easier, but her clothes don’t feel as restrictive once it’s gone.

She paces over to the window and throws the shutters open, like that might let in some air, and squints at the light that floods in instead.

She knows it was only her mind playing tricks on her at the docks, but she still has to ball her hands into fists to stop them from shaking.

It doesn’t really work, and she crosses the room to the table next to the bed and reaches for the sculpted flower she’d bought before Clarke came to Polis, wrapping her fingers around the stem.

It takes a while, but her hand eventually stops trembling.

//

She’s not sure how much later it is when someone knocks on her door but she comes to and reaches a hand towards her sword reflexively, before she realises an enemy probably wouldn’t knock.

She climbs to her feet and reaches for her jacket on the back of the door instead, throwing it over the thin shirt she wears before she opens the door. She only just manages to stop herself from taking a step backwards when she sees who it is.

“Clarke,” she says, drawing her jacket a little tighter around herself. She misses her armor.

Cedrik is standing a respectful distance away at the end of the hall.

“Can I come in?” Clarke says, and Lexa steps aside so Clarke can pass her, before she can think better of it.

Clarke looks nervous, but not in the same way she has since she arrived in Polis. There’s a smile hovering around her mouth and warmth in her eyes when she looks at Lexa, and Lexa feels an answering tug low in her stomach and tries to ignore it.

She shuts the door behind Clarke, and then turns to face her, waiting.

Clarke’s eyes sweep around the room, taking everything in, before they come back to settle on Lexa. “I just wanted to—” she cuts off and half laughs, running a hand through her hair self-consciously. “I’m sorry you had to carry me home last night. Monty and Raven didn’t tell me how strong their liquor was.”

“It is fine, Clarke,” Lexa says carefully, wondering if that is the only reason Clarke came here. She keeps her voice steady and her face blank, and sees the flash of uncertainty in Clarke’s eyes.

“Right,” Clarke says, turning around and looking at one of the maps on Lexa’s desk. She sounds confused but Lexa doesn’t know how she could explain it to her.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt if you’re busy with something.” She can tell by the clipped tones of Clarke’s voice that she’s upset, and she clenches her jaw against the words she wants to say.

She forces herself to say nothing as she remembers Clarke whispering that she didn’t want to go back, and Bellamy’s face when he said they would be leaving. She remembers Bellamy asking what she was to Clarke, and Costia’s lifeless body being sent back to her in pieces.

Clarke folds her arms across her chest and sets her jaw as she turns to look at her, and Lexa has to look away from the hurt in Clarke’s eyes, trying not to think about the last time she saw it there.

Or how it is always her that puts it there.

“Thank you for showing me the festival, Commander.” The title sounds like an insult in Clarke’s mouth. “I’ll leave you to your maps.”

It takes everything in her not to call after Clarke and ask her to stop, and she winces as Clarke slams the door behind her and lets out a shaky breath she didn’t know she’d been holding.

//

She goes down to the kitchen later, when she can’t stand to stare at the flower propped up next to her bed any longer.

It’s so late the kitchen is almost deserted, and she’s grateful there’s no one to look at her with accusing eyes.

There are two little boys turning a spit of meat over the fire and they go white when they see her and snap to attention, saying nothing when she borrows one of the kitchen knives to carve off a chunk of meat and sandwich it between two pieces of bread.

She takes a bite and then pulls a bit off to give to each of them and they smile happily at her as they eat it. “Don’t tell, Cook,” she whispers, like it’s their secret, and they both nod as they murmur their thanks.

She ducks out of the back door into the twilight, and stops when she sees Lincoln, hunched over a pair of rabbits that he’s gutting, tossing the entrails over to one of the dogs that lives in the stables.

She doesn’t move, but he must hear her because he looks up and nods at her.

“Good hunting?” she asks, as she leans against the wall and eats her sandwich, and he nods as he starts to skin the animals.

“Indra took Octavia for her first hunt. She caught these,” he says proudly and Lexa has to look away from the happy expression on his face.

She remembers Anya taking her on her first hunt when she was thirteen and clumsy, unable to make her fingers work a bow. She’d gone hungry for two nights before she’d managed to sneak up on Anya and steal some of her food. Anya had punished her, but she’d looked proud while she did it.

“You seem happy with Octavia,” she says, and though she tries to keep her voice flat it still comes out like a question.

His hands still as he looks up at her. His eyes sweep her face, and she feels like he sees something she’s tried to kept hidden. “I love her,” he says with a shrug, after a moment. “And for now that is enough.”

She thinks about Clarke kissing her at the festival.

“It is easy to think that way here,” Lexa admits quietly, and Lincoln gives her that look again.

“You can live in the woods too long, Lexa.”

She pretends to ignore that he uses her name instead of her title.

“We are trikru, Lincoln,” she says, as she turns back towards the house. “Sooner or later, we always go back.”

//

The moon is high in the sky when she reaches the docks.

She walks to the end and ducks behind some of the storage crates, sinking down and fitting herself into the familiar gap. She draws her knees up to her chin and wraps her arms around them, remembering the first time she’d come here, years before.

“Costia,” she murmurs, almost a sigh. She wraps her arms a little tighter around herself, her fingers brushing against the scar over her heart through her shirt, and pauses, not sure what to say.

She used to do this more often than she has lately, and she closes her eyes, like it will help.

“I thought I saw you at the docks today. There was a fire and I was helping our people salvage what they could from the wreckage.” She pauses and then sighs out, “I miss you, and this,” she gestures around her, “and all the other places we used to find to hide in together when things got hard.”

She’s starting to sound weak, and she swallows because that isn’t why she came here.

“There are new people now, a new clan. They came from the sky, and their leader—” her breath hitches in her throat and the next part comes out more like a strangled whisper. “Her name is Clarke.”

She’s not sure she believes Costia can actually hear her, but she pushes on anyway.   

“I think you would like her, Cos,” she says it so quietly, she hardly hears it herself. “She is strong and determined and makes hard choices every day. Her people respect her so much, even though she was a child by their laws when they landed. She’s grown into a leader people respect and didn’t lose herself doing it.”

She doesn’t say _not like me_ out loud but she thinks it just the same.

“You would like her, Costia,” she says again, and she’s not sure who she’s trying to convince. “You would.”

She sits there for a long time, staring into the water and pretending she can see the reflections of those she loves next to her.

She wonders if one day she’ll do this same thing by the pool in the center of the park, and tries to push the thought away.

//

She dreams about walking away from Clarke at the Mountain door, trying to keep the tears that threaten to fall under control, and then everything shifts, and Clarke is walking away from her, not looking back as Lexa calls Clarke’s name over and over.

She tries to get Clarke to stop but she won’t and soon she’s running after her through the woods, following glimpses of blond hair through the trees.

Lexa shouts that she’s sorry but Clarke doesn’t hear her.

She tells her that she made a mistake but Clarke doesn’t stop.

She wakes with Clarke’s name on her lips and sweat soaking her shirt, and she stares at the ceiling as she wills her heart to stop pounding against her chest.

//

She doesn’t sleep for the rest of the night, and she splashes cold water on her face in the morning to try and wake herself up. She’s not sure it works, and she blinks her way downstairs, ignoring everyone who wishes her good morning on the way.

Indra fixes her with a concerned look when she finds her in the main hall hunched over her breakfast, and Lexa wonders how tired she must look for Indra to show concern where anyone might see.

Octavia glances between them and says nothing, but just for a second Lexa thinks she sees anger in her eyes.

//

There is a clan meeting and she goes, Indra and Octavia flanking her as she stands in her usual place and waits for the other leaders to file in. There are no hard decisions to make or angry men to fight, and she discusses the plans to rebuild the market with the leader of the boat people and directs the resources with as much wisdom as she can.

She hopes it will make a difference.

“Heda, there is one more thing we wish to discuss,” the boat woman says, once the plan to rebuild is in place. Lexa watches the way her eyes flick over to Octavia and away before she speaks again. “How long will the skaikru be staying in Polis?”

“And will they be claiming the territory around the Mountain as their lands?” someone else asks, and Lexa wraps her hand around the hilt of her sword carefully.

“They are in trigeda lands. I am happy to allow them to remain there,” she says, meeting each leader’s eyes in turn. “Your other question should be directed to Clarke. I will not speak for her.”

“Heda,” the man who had spoken before says, “are they part of the Coalition now? Will the alliance be formalized?”

She swallows, realizing she doesn’t know the answer. She glances at Octavia and knows whatever she says will be reported back to Clarke.

It is part of the reason she asked Octavia and Indra to come.

“The skaikru can remain here as long as they wish,” she says, her hand tight around the hilt of her sword. “And if they wish to become a part of this Coalition, they would have my support.”

She glances at Octavia again and though Octavia doesn’t look at her, she sees the hint of a smile at the corner of her mouth.

“Mine too, Heda,” the boat woman says, and then one by one the others follow.

//

She makes a habit out of going to the kitchen in the evening when she knows it will be mostly empty and making herself and the two boys who tend the meat a sandwich before ducking out into the yard behind the building to eat it.

She’s not expecting to find anyone, so she stops when she sees Indra and Octavia sparring, Lincoln cheering them on from the lengthening shadows at the side of the building. She tries to go back in before they see her, but Lincoln calls, “Heda,” and she has no choice but to join them.

“Octavia’s going to win tonight,” Lincoln tells her with a smile, and Lexa just nods as she eats, watching the fight appraisingly.

Octavia is better than she expected, dodging under most of Indra’s swings and returning the blows with as much force as she takes. They both have bloody cuts on the patches of skin showing between their armor, and Lexa winces as Octavia punches Indra solidly in the side of her head, causing the other woman’s head to snap back.

Octavia presses her advantage and Indra goes down on one knee, Octavia bringing her sword down to press against her neck. Indra scowls as Octavia grins, and Lexa raises her eyebrows at Lincoln’s smile because she knows what comes next even if Octavia doesn’t.

“I won!” Octavia crows, and Lexa sees the second Indra notice she’s let her guard down, because Indra throws her arm out and pulls Octavia’s legs out from under her before launching herself forward to knock Octavia’s sword away and land on top of her, the knife in her hand resting against Octavia’s skin.

“Finish your enemy before you gloat,” Indra says, pulling her knife hand back and standing. Octavia looks furious, but she takes Indra’s hand when she offers it to her and lets herself be pulled to her feet.

Once Octavia’s back is to her, the corner of Indra’s mouth twitches up into a smile for a second, before she manages to hide it.

“Yes, Indra,” Octavia says. She’s breathing hard, and once she gets to Lincoln he cups her face in his hands to examine the cuts on her cheek. Octavia tilts her head up so he can see better, and winces when he brushes some of the blood away with his thumb.

“Are we done here?” Lincoln asks. “This will need stitching.”

Octavia rolls her eyes at the concern in his voice, and tries to pull away from him. “It’s fine. I can still fight.”

She looks like she’s desperate to prove she’s learnt her lesson, and Lexa holds out her hand to stop Indra when she takes a step towards her.

“Fight me,” Lexa says, and Octavia looks to Indra quickly, like she’s waiting for permission.

Indra just looks at her and Octavia’s tongue darts out to lick at her lips before she says, “Yes Heda.”

Lexa takes Indra’s sword because her own is in her room and goes into a fighting stance, watching Octavia do the same. “Do not hold back,” she tells her, taking a step forward and swinging the sword a little, measuring the weight of it.

“Yes, Heda,” she says again, and steps forward to attack.

It isn’t really a fair fight. Octavia is tired from sparring with Indra and Lexa is well-rested, but Octavia still manages to land a few blows, punching Lexa under her chin where she had broken her jaw fighting the ice man, causing Lexa to take a couple of unsteady steps backwards as she clenches her teeth against the pain.

Octavia grins fiercely, and Lexa spits blood as she steps forward again.

Every time Lexa knocks her down, Octavia gets back up, but her movements are slowing, and Lexa’s sword taps at Octavia’s armor as Octavia stumbles backwards, no longer quick enough to dodge the swing.

Lexa presses her advantage and her cockiness costs her. Octavia dodges inside her next attack and punches her square in the face with the hand that holds her sword, and Lexa feels something almost give in her nose as the hilt hits her. She dodges back a couple of steps and sees Octavia grin at her again, wiping the blood from her cheek with the back of her hand.

She can feel her blood seeping from a cut on her arm, and her jaw aches where Octavia hit her. Indra’s sword is heavier than her own in her hand.

Octavia breathes hard as she waits for Lexa’s next attack, conserving what remains of her energy.

Lexa needs to finish this now.

She lunges forward, ducking under Octavia’s sword and knocking her to the ground. She kicks the sword away and grabs her arm, pinning it behind Octavia’s back as she holds her sword to her throat.

Octavia blinks up at her, and huffs out a breath.

“You did well,” Lexa says in English, and wonders if Octavia knows she might have won, if that last attack had failed. She sucks in a lungful of air and loosens her grip on Octavia’s arm, “Octavia kom tri en skai.”

Her breath rattles in her chest and she winces as she reaches down to help Octavia to her feet. She’s not sure her ribs have fully healed from her fight with the ice man, and she feels something pull in her side when Octavia takes her hand.

“Mochof, Heda,” Octavia says, climbing to her feet unsteadily.

She starts to limp back towards Lincoln and Indra, and Lexa slides an arm around her shoulder to help her.

“You don’t have to—” Octavia starts to say, but Lexa shakes her head.

“Accepting help is not weakness, Octavia. You fought well, but now the fight is over.”

She feels Octavia nod against her arm, nearly missing her whispered, “Mochof, Heda.”

They’ve almost reached the others when Octavia glances at her and says, “You should speak to Clarke.”

Lexa stiffens, but says nothing.

“I know how you feel about her, and I can see how she feels about you,” Lincoln steps forward to meet them, and wraps an arm around Octavia’s shoulders to support her.

“And that should be enough for now,” Octavia calls after her, as she lets herself be helped away.

//

Her ribs hurt by the time she gets back to her room, hot angry stabs of pain each time she breathes in.

She kicks her boots off carefully and sinks down on to her bed, trying to hold herself steady as she sits on the edge, her feet flat against the floor.

She curls an arm around herself like she’s trying to hold herself together, and thinks about what Octavia had said to her.

She should have asked what Octavia meant by _how Clarke feels about you_ and why Octavia had said it with such certainty.

She wants to know how Octavia knows, when she isn’t sure if Clarke does herself.

She sighs out and feels the pain in her ribs again, and braces herself before she takes a deep breath in.

It doesn’t hurt as much as it did, but the pain stabs at her like an angry reminder of the things she’s done, and she reaches for the flower next to her bed and twists her fingers around the stem to try and distract herself.

//

Her ribs keep her awake, and the darkness gives her too much space to think.

Cedrik is on watch outside her room when she opens the door, and he manages not to look too surprised when she says, “Is Clarke in her room?”

“I believe so, Heda,” he says, straightening a little under her gaze. “That is where I left her.”

She doesn’t wait for him to follow her, and after a minute he takes a couple of hesitant steps after her.

“Stay here, Cedrik,” she says, with the snap of command, and watches him disappear as she rounds the corner.

Bellamy’s second— _Monroe?_ —is on guard at the end of the skaikru hallway, and her eyes sweep up and down Lexa carefully like she’s looking for weapons, before she steps aside to let her pass.

She feels Monroe’s eyes on her when she knocks on Clarke’s door quietly, and forces herself to count the breaths she takes, her hands balling into fists at her sides.

It feels like it takes forever for Clarke to open the door, and she blinks sleepily as her eyebrows furrow in confusion. “Lexa?”

In the back of her mind, she thinks that at least Clarke didn’t use her title.

“Clarke,” she says, keeping her voice low. Now that she’s here she’s not sure what to say, and she cuts off, swallowing to steady herself.

This had seemed like a good idea in her room, when the color of the petals had reminded her of the color of Clarke’s eyes.

Clarke just waits, her expression guarded, and Lexa forces herself to go on.

“I need to ride out to visit the farms outside the city walls tomorrow. I would like it if you— would you like to join me?” she hates how her voice gets higher at the end when it turns into a question. “I did not think you had seen them, and the skaikru might benefit from our farmers’ knowledge.”

Clarke studies her face carefully, and then exhales noisily. “Will I be visiting the farms with the Commander or with you, Lexa?”

“Me,” Lexa whispers immediately, and can’t stop herself from reaching a hand out towards her. Their fingers brush together, and Clarke shivers before she takes a half step back.

Lexa forces herself to stay completely still, holding her breath as she waits for Clarke’s answer.

“Tomorrow, then,” Clarke says, with a tremble in her voice.

She tries but she can’t keep the smile off her face, and she nods instead, like maybe that will hide it. “Tomorrow, Clarke.”

//

She wakes early so she can take a bath, shaking two of her attendants awake on the way so they will help her undo the braids in her hair. They wait respectfully while she bathes and offer to help her tie her hair up again but she refuses, and has them pull it into one thick braid down her back instead.

She wore it like this when she was Anya’s second, and she missed the familiar weight of it against her back.

She pulls on a simple shirt and pants and ignores her armor and warpaint, tightening the belt around her waist a little more than she has to as she examines her appearance in the mirror. She doesn’t look much like the legendary Heda who united the twelve clans despite the knife she’s tucked into her belt, and she wonders if Clarke will notice the difference.

It’s so early the cooks are not yet in the kitchen, and she steals what supplies she can, wrapping them in cloths carefully and stowing them in her pack. She feels nervous when she goes to attach her pack to her horse, and Cedrik offers her a tight smile as he holds the reins, like he feels the same.

She shifts on her feet as she waits, the sounds of the house starting to wake up drifting to her on the still morning air.

She is checking her sword and pack are secured to her saddle for the fourth time when Clarke appears, Raven limping along behind her. She says something that makes Clarke laugh as they approach and Lexa steps forward to meet them.

They all come to a stop and face each other, and Lexa tries to ignore the way Raven is looking at her, her eyes sweeping up and down. It makes her feel self-conscious, and she forces herself to stay still and stare back impassively.

Clarke has left her armor inside as well. She wears the pants and shirt she’d worn to the festival, though the holster that holds her gun is wrapped around her leg tightly, and Lexa feels warmth spread through her at the sight of her.

It’s the first time she doesn’t try to push it away.

Raven smirks as she looks between them. “Now Lexa, what are your intentions towards Clarke?”

She’s so busy looking at Clarke that she almost doesn’t answer, and then she grows confused as she tries to understand what Raven means. “My intentions?”

Clarke laughs and smacks Raven in the arm, and she has a feeling it’s some skaikru joke that she doesn’t know.

“You promised you wouldn’t,” Clarke hisses and Raven just shrugs, starting to laugh herself.

“I intend to show Clarke the farms on the edge of the city,” Lexa tries, after a second, but that makes Raven laugh even more.

“Please don’t encourage her,” Clarke says, taking a step away from Raven.

Lexa isn’t sure that she is, but Clarke is so close, Lexa could reach out and touch her hand. She forces herself to look back up at both of them instead.

“Fine,” Raven says, favoring the leg without the brace, her hip jutting out as she shades her eyes against the sun. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

Clarke scoffs, and waves her hand like it will make Raven go away. It doesn’t, and Clarke rolls her eyes. “That doesn’t leave much, does it?”

Raven smiles sweetly and turns to head back towards the house. “Enjoy your date!” she calls over her shoulder, and Lexa watches Clarke’s cheeks flush.

“She thinks she’s funny,” she says with a shake of her head, and Lexa shrugs.

“I’m not sure I understand your people’s sense of humour.”

Clarke looks at her closely like she thinks Lexa might be lying, but then she relaxes and Lexa feels like she’s passed some sort of test.

“It’s a two hour ride,” she says, taking one of the horses from Cedrik. “Are you ready to leave now?”

Clarke nods and offers her a small smile.

“Lead the way,” she says, and Lexa does.

//

Clarke rides well for someone who had never seen a horse before four months ago.

They sit side by side in silence, Cedrik a little further behind, giving them some space.

Their horses are well-trained and keep pace with each other without guidance, and Lexa’s eyes drift over to Clarke without her really telling them to, examining the way the light plays through her hair and over her face.

The third time she does it, Clarke notices and looks back, and Lexa looks away quickly, pretending to tug at one of the straps that fixes her pack to the saddle.

When she risks looking back, Clarke is staring straight ahead, but she’s smiling and her eyes sparkle in the morning sun.

//

Clarke’s mouth falls open in surprise when they reach the crest of the hill overlooking the farms, and she sits up straight in her saddle and shades her eyes from the sun, trying to take it all in.

The green fields stretch on and on, with the small wooden houses the only thing breaking up the view.

“How did you—?” Clarke says, and then shakes her head in disbelief.

“It took a long time,” Lexa says quietly. “The stories of our people say the winters were harsh after the bombs, and many died before we could grow our own food. The radiation destroyed the plants and trees but gradually we found things locked away in bunkers or buildings that had survived. New things grew in the wilds. My people discovered what was edible. At a cost.”

Clarke nods her head in understanding, her expression serious. “They sacrificed their lives so others could live.”

“Yes,” Lexa sighs. “After Polis was founded, each clan bought crops with them, what they could find in their own lands. The city has always been neutral ground, the clans had to come here to get their food. None of us could survive alone for long.”

“But no one united the clans before you,” Clarke says.

“Polis was neutral ground,” Lexa says with a half shrug. “The rest of the world wasn’t, and we couldn’t keep killing each other. There were other threats to face.”

“The Mountain Men,” Clarke says and Lexa nods.

Clarke’s eyes settle on her face. “You united the clans after what the Ice Nation did to Costia.”

Lexa clenches her jaw and nods, just once.

“I can’t imagine what that cost you,” Clarke says quietly, and reaches out to brush her hand against Lexa’s fingers.

Lexa remembers the way Clarke had stabbed Finn in the heart to keep her people from torturing him, and how she’d wiped the tears from her eyes moments later when Lexa had come to find her, shrugging out of her mother’s hug.

“Yes you can,” Lexa says, and looks away to try and regain control of her expression.

The only sounds are the ones their horses make, and when Lexa looks back there’s an echo of her sadness on Clarke’s face.

“Come on,” Lexa says, “the farms are waiting.”

She nudges her horse with her heels and doesn’t wait to see if Clarke is following.

//

The men and women working in the nearest field drop their tools to come and meet them, lifting their arms up to grip Lexa’s hand in greeting before she can dismount her horse.

Clarke hangs back and watches, her eyes wide as a little girl belonging to one of the workers throws her arms around Lexa’s legs and nearly makes her stumble, Lexa catching herself with a laugh as she swings the girl up on to her hip.

“Do you want to meet my friend Clarke?” Lexa says in trigedasleng, and the girl nods shyly, ducking her head behind Lexa’s shoulder.

She carries the girl over to Clarke and tries to ignore the way Clarke is looking at her, like she’s never truly seen her before.

It takes her a moment to shift her gaze to the girl, but then Clarke smiles at her until she starts to smile back, and takes her hand so she can shake it. “Hi,” Clarke says solemnly, like it’s a great honor to meet her.

The girl giggles, and Lexa sets her down on her feet. “Do you want to show us the harvest?” Lexa asks her, Clarke squinting like she’s trying to translate the words into her own language.

The girl nods and runs towards one of the buildings calling for her mother.

She has to look away from the expression on Clarke’s face when she says, “The farmers will give us a tour,” and turns to follow after the girl.

//   

They’re both silent on the ride home, and it’s Clarke who eventually breaks it.

“Why did you want to take me there?”

Lexa doesn’t say anything for a long moment, her eyes fixed on the road in front of them. “You can live in the woods too long, Clarke,” she says, not exactly an answer.

“The war is over,” Clarke murmurs quietly, and Lexa nods, spurring her horse on, back towards the city.

There is more weight to both phrases than there should be, and Lexa thinks Clarke might understand after all.

//

Cedrik takes their horses when they dismount in Polis, and leads them away to the stables, leaving them alone.

Clarke shifts on her feet a little, tugging at the shorter side of her hair. “Thank you. For today. It was…” Clarke trails off and huffs out a laugh. “Nice.”

Lexa nods and can’t keep herself from taking a half step closer to her. “Thank you for joining me, Clarke. It was… nice.” Clarke grins back at her when she smiles, and just for a second Lexa thinks she’s seeing the girl Clarke was when she first arrived on the ground, before the war and the hard choices and the death of her friends.

Clarke is the one who closes the last bit of space between them, her fingertips brushing against Lexa’s jaw as she kisses her cheek. It’s over almost before it begins, Clarke pulling back quickly, a shy expression on her face.

Lexa can still feel the warmth of her mouth against her skin.

“I don’t want to live in the woods anymore,” Clarke whispers, like it’s a secret.

Lexa swallows and forces herself to say, “I’m not sure we get to choose, Clarke.”

It’s too easy to wish for things in Polis, especially when Clarke is looking at her the way she is now.

“We will,” Clarke says, and something turns over low in Lexa’s stomach as the future she’s never let herself imagine comes into sharper focus.

She nods, not trusting herself to speak.

//

She takes Clarke to a different part of the city every day, and never gets tired of the look of wonder in Clarke’s eyes when she sees things she never expected to find here, like the museum containing all the artifacts her people found from the time before the bombs and couldn’t make use of, or the schools where children learn their numbers and letters and look at them both curiously as they hover in the doorways.

Polis is full of secrets. Costia helped her learn most of them when she was younger, and it doesn’t make her heart ache that much when she shows them to Clarke.

Not when Clarke gasps at what looks like a pile of electrical parts in the museum and says, “Raven would love to get her hands on that,” excitedly, clutching Lexa’s arm to make sure she sees it, or when she says, “The kids had these on the Ark, look it’s a scooter…” and folds out what had looked like a rusted, bent piece of metal with two wheels at the bottom until a moment ago, and is now something Clarke rides around the room with a joyful expression on her face.

She knows it can’t last, and she knows Clarke does too because she grips her hand when they stand in front of the paintings in the Art House, and tells her she isn’t crying because she’s sad when Lexa asks her what’s wrong. Lexa doesn’t understand, but she doesn’t push, and after a moment Clarke drops her head to rest against her shoulder and says, “I can’t believe this is real,” and Lexa nods against her hair and grips her hand tighter.

It’s been days, and it’s easy to forget this isn’t how their lives are now, that she doesn’t just wake up in the morning with nothing but the responsibility to show Clarke a new part of the city.

She knows there aren’t that many new places left, but it’s easy to pretend when they spend an afternoon in the library, Clarke leaning back against Lexa’s side  as they read, lifting her book up every now and then so she can show Lexa something she’s found about the old days, her head pitching back into Lexa’s lap.

She doesn’t think about the future when she shows Clarke the flower garden and hears her gasp at the way the flowers glow in the twilight, and then again when Lexa turns into her and kisses her, just because she’s tired of fighting her need to.

Her name on Clarke’s lips sounds like please when she pulls back, and she tries to resist the pull of Clarke’s hand in the small of her back, urging her forward.

It’s dangerous to pretend this can last forever, but when she looks into the blue of Clarke’s eyes as Clarke’s fingers settle against her cheek it’s hard to make herself remember.

“Clarke,” she mumbles, at the same time Clarke says, “I know,” dropping her hand with a sigh.

She’s so close Lexa could lean forward and close the gap between them again, but she swallows as she looks away from Clarke’s lips instead.

She’s been weak enough already.

//

When she wakes up on the twelfth morning, Indra is waiting for her, and she knows her days with Clarke are over.

“Heda,” she starts, and Lexa wonders if it’s to remind her of who she is. “You missed the last clan meetings.”

It isn’t a question, but Lexa answers it like it is. “I had things to attend to, Indra. You were there to represent our interests.” It comes out more defensively than she intended, and she busies herself with strapping some of the smaller pieces of her armor around her legs, just to give herself something to do.

It feels like it’s been a long time since she wore them.

Indra’s face is still set into a frown as she watches her, and Lexa looks up to meet her glare. “Speak.”

Indra looks like she’s fighting with herself, and then she says. “I know you are happy, Heda,” and it’s somehow worse than if she hadn’t said anything at all. She looks away from Lexa’s eyes carefully, and Lexa takes the chance to clench her jaw against the words she wants to say. “But do not forget where your responsibilities lie.”

Lexa takes a step towards her before she can stop herself, and Indra flinches like she thinks Lexa might strike her. “You forget yourself,” she growls. She isn’t really angry with Indra, but it doesn’t make it any easier to calm herself.

Even twelve days of self-indulgence is more than a leader can afford.

The words seem to anger Indra, and Lexa watches her draw herself up to her full height. Indra is shorter than her, but she still manages to fill the space between them. “No, I do not. We are trigedakru, Heda. They are not.”

“I have not forgotten, but the skaikru are our allies,” Lexa swallows and hates that she searches for an excuse. “I am making sure Clarke knows that.”

The words hang between them for a long moment. Indra just looks at her, and Lexa knows she doesn’t believe the lie.

“It’s not Clarke I’m worried about,” Indra says eventually. “We had a report from the scouts you left in Tondc yesterday. The people at Camp Jaha fired on them. There have been skirmishes in the woods.”

“Clarke would not have ordered this,” she says immediately. It would jeopardize any alliance she came to Polis to build.

“Maybe not,” Indra says, “but whoever is in charge now has.”

 _Clarke is in charge_ she wants to say, but Lexa remembers the look on Clarke’s face when she’d told her her mother had been asking for bone marrow donors, and swallows hard. “Leave me the reports,” she says, holding out her hand for the rolls of paper fisted in Indra’s hand. “I will speak to the skaikru.”

Indra only hesitates for a moment before she hands them over. “Yes, Heda. Your orders for the scouts?”

Lexa’s knuckles turn white where she holds the paper. “They are not to attack first. Stay hidden, if they can. Defend themselves if they must.”

Indra nods, and Lexa can’t help but notice the flicker of disappointment that crosses her features before she turns towards the door.

Lexa doesn’t know if it’s directed at her or her orders, but she feels the old guilt rise up in her chest and isn’t sure it matters.

//

Clarke is waiting for her in the main hall when she’s finished reading the reports, sitting at a table with Raven, Monty and Bellamy.

She hovers in the doorway for a moment, watching them all laugh at something Raven says, and wishes she could stay there and let Clarke be happy with her friends.

It’s hard to make herself move but she does it, trying to wipe all traces of expression from her face as she crosses the room towards them. She feels the same way she had when she’d walked back down the slope towards the Mountain door, a smirking Mountain Man at her side, and knew she was about to betray Clarke.

She sets her jaw, and keeps walking.

“You’re late,” Raven says, when she gets close enough. “Clarke was just about to cry.” She smirks, and Lexa realizes it’s meant to be another one of Raven’s jokes, but she doesn’t have the energy to play along this morning.

Raven shrugs when her comment gets no response, and looks around the table for support. Monty shakes his head the same way Clarke does, while Bellamy stares down at his plate and pushes some of the food around with a fork, hiding his smile.

Lexa’s not sure she’s ever felt so disconnected from a group of people, and she forces herself to look at Clarke, seeing the smile creep on to her face when their eyes meet.

Lexa feels the familiar flush of warmth go through her, and tries to push it away.

She can’t do this with the feeling of being wanted lurking in her chest.

“I’m sorry,” she says, not really sure if she means for being late or for what she’s about to do.

“You’re not late,” Clarke says quickly, and Lexa nods jerkily, hoping Clarke doesn’t notice the stiffness in her movements.

Raven says something else that makes Monty snort into his cup, but Lexa isn’t sure her ears are working properly because she doesn’t understand the words, even as she watches Clarke shove at Raven’s arm good-naturedly.

Her whole word focuses to Clarke’s smile as the conversation fades in and out around her, so she almost misses the way Bellamy is looking at her, eyes narrowed in suspicion.

“I’ll meet you in the courtyard when you’re ready, Clarke,” she says, over whatever else is happening, and forces herself to stand still when they all turn to look at her.

Clarke’s smile starts to fade as her eyes scan Lexa’s face, and Lexa turns and walks away before the last bit of her control disappears altogether.

//

She’s leaning against a wall trying to keep her breathing even when Clarke says, “What’s going on, Lexa?” and she turns to find Clarke standing there with her arms folded across her chest like she’s trying to protect herself, Bellamy hovering by her right shoulder.

Clarke looks like she’s fighting with herself, and Lexa remembers when she’d pressed Cedrik for reports on Clarke and he’d told her about the way she acted in crowds of people sometimes, when she thought he wasn’t looking.

She’d seen it in her warriors too, after battles she’d sent them to, but it’s worse seeing the way Clarke tries to hide the shaking in her hands as she stands there waiting.

She takes a breath and speaks quickly, “I left scouts in Tondc before I left. This morning they came to tell me there have been skirmishes in the woods. Your people fired on mine.”

Clarke and Bellamy exchange a look before either of them speak, and just for a second Lexa fears her faith in Clarke was misplaced.

“My mother,” Clarke says, voice hard, and Bellamy offers her a shrug.

Lexa releases a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding.

“Or Kane. Or one of the survivors, maybe if—” he starts to say, and Lexa realizes that he’s trying to spare Clarke the pain of thinking badly of her mother.

Clarke talks over him, and Lexa isn’t sure if she heard any of the words he said. “I’ve been here too long,” she whispers, and Lexa sees some of the light that’s been restored to Clarke’s eyes since she arrived at the city gates disappear again.

“Clarke—” she says, and then has no idea what to say when she sees the heartbroken expression on Clarke’s face as she turns to look at her, the same one she’d worn at the Mountain door.

The guilt rises up in her again, and she swallows, looking away from the way Clarke’s lower lip is starting to tremble.

“I have to go back,” Clarke says, then louder and more desperately as she turns to Bellamy. “I have to stop this.”

Bellamy glances at Lexa like he’s waiting for her to say something but she can’t make herself speak past the lump in her throat, and after a second he moves closer to Clarke and reaches for her arm. “Listen,” he says, voice low and urgent, “we’ll figure this out okay? We’ll get everyone together and come up with a plan.”

“We have to go back, Bellamy,” Clarke says, like she hasn’t heard him, and he nods as he tries to find her eyes.

Lexa watches his fingers tighten around her arm and Clarke’s eyes regain their focus. It still feels like a long time before they slide up to Bellamy’s.

“We’ll figure this out together, okay?” he says.

Clarke’s breath sounds shallower than usual when she nods.

“Okay,” Clarke whispers.

Clarke takes a ragged breath before she meets Lexa’s eyes, and Lexa knows her own expression mirrors the barely suppressed sadness on Clarke’s face. She sets her jaw, and wishes she had a knife in her belt to grip.

“I have to—” Clarke says, at the same time Lexa says, “Go.” It’s the only thing she trusts herself to say, and she tries to ignore how even that comes out like a strangled sob.

Clarke holds her gaze for a long moment before she nods, and Lexa sees all the things she’s feeling pass over Clarke’s face. Clarke’s eyes look wet, and Lexa blinks hard, her hand twisting around one of the buckles on the armor around her arm.

It cuts into her palm as she watches Clarke walk away.

“We won’t leave without telling you,” Bellamy says, from where he hasn’t moved, and she nods in acknowledgment, not bothering to turn back to him.

“Mochof,” she says, when he goes past her, and forces herself to stand straight when he glances back at her over his shoulder before he disappears inside the building.

She stands there for a long time, unmoving, the sun beating down on her as it climbs higher in the sky.

She stands there so long that Cedrik comes to find her, a look of concern on his face as he asks her if she needs anything.

 _Clarke_ , she wants to say, but she shakes her head and makes herself move instead.    

//

She manages to keep her hands from shaking until she gets back to her room and then she sits on the edge of her bed and fists her hands in the covers, trying to keep the darkness from overwhelming her.

She stacks and restacks her pots of warpaint, slides her sword in and out of its scabbard, rolls out the scouts’ reports so she can read them again and again, but it doesn’t help, and she ends up sitting in the middle of the floor surrounded by the pieces of armor she’s removed, holding the flower carefully in her trembling hands, and trying not to look at the color of the petals.

She knew that whatever this was with Clarke would not last forever, but it doesn’t stop her from kicking out at the chest in the corner of her room in frustration, or squeezing her hands into fists, itching for something to hit.

She should have known better than to let herself pretend she could be happy, and she rubs her fists against the angry wet tears at the corners of her eyes and wishes she had more self control.

//

It’s dark when she goes to Clarke’s room, the nearly-full moon already halfway across the sky.

There’s no guard in the hallway and she taps against the door quietly, holding her breath while she waits to see if Clarke will answer, ignoring the part of her mind screaming at her to go back to her room and forget all about this.

When the door opens, Clarke’s eyes are red, and Lexa tries not to think about what that means.

“There is something I need to show you, Clarke,” she says, hesitating for a second before she reaches for Clarke’s hand.

Clarke doesn’t speak, but her fingers tighten in Lexa’s, and Lexa takes it for a yes.

//

The docks are eerily quiet at this time of night, and she leads Clarke through the empty stalls set up by the water and the empty shell of the market, new wood propped up against one side ready for the repairs.

Clarke looks all around them as they walk, taking in the boats moored up off the piers, bobbing up and down with the water. She’s so busy looking at them that she nearly bumps into Lexa when she comes to a stop on the storage pier and her eyes narrow in confusion when she sees where they are.

“This is my favourite place in Polis,” Lexa says, crouching down to sit on the edge of the pier, her legs hanging over the edge, stopping just short of the water.

Clarke stays standing, her arms folded across her chest. “Really?”

Lexa takes a breath and holds it in for a second before she releases it. “It’s where I met Costia,” she says, before she can think better of it.

She needs to make Clarke understand.

She watches the surprise register on Clarke’s face and then sees it give way to something else, soft and sad and curious, her whole body relaxing as the wall she was trying to hold between them gives way. She lowers herself down until she’s sitting next to Lexa, warm and solid against her side.

“Tell me about her,” Clarke says softly, so Lexa does.

“I was thirteen when I was given to Anya to train. They didn’t know I would be the Commander then, so Anya started my training the same way she would any second. She taught me how to survive in the woods, and how to fight, and when I was fifteen she brought me to Polis for the first time.” She doesn’t look at Clarke as she talks, just stares down at her hands and all the scars that hide behind those words.

“There are places in the city where seconds can go to fight each other. To test their skills while their mentors look on. She was proud of how quickly I’d learnt to handle a sword and she took me to the pits one night to show me off. I got drawn against a boy who was three times my size.” She laughs tonelessly. “I was little, then. I didn’t grow until much later. When I stood in the ring facing him I only came up to his chest. Anya told me to use my size against him but I was fifteen and scared and he…” she swallows, “won.”

Clarke’s hand creeps into hers, and Lexa grips her fingers tightly. “What does this have to do with Costia?”

“Anya was… unhappy with how I behaved in the ring. She wouldn’t let me go to the healers.” She looks up to find Clarke’s eyes, and sees the angry set of her lips. “It sounds harsh to you, Clarke, but Anya had every right. I learnt more from having to manage my injuries than if I let someone else mend them. And I learnt the consequences of losing a fight.”

Clarke says nothing, but she looks away and shakes her head.

“I didn’t know the city so well then, and I came here. Costia found me hidden between two barrels, crying over my wounds.”

“She lived in the city?” Clarke asks in surprise and Lexa shakes her head.

“She was one of the boat people. Her parents came here to trade, so she came with them. I liked her immediately,” she smiles as she remembers, “and I think she was… intrigued by me. The boat people don’t have warriors the same way that we do. They ride the waves on the decks of ships the same way we ride horses. I was the first land warrior she’d seen, and I was a crying child covered in blood.”

“It’s one way to make an impression,” Clarke says. On any other night it would be a joke, but neither of them act like it is now.

“She was kind to me, in a different way to Anya. She helped me bind my wrist and wiped some of the blood off my skin. Once I had healed, I came back here to find her, to thank her. She hadn’t told me her name, and I waited for hours, looking for some sign of her. I’d almost given up when she found me. When she smiled at me, I think—” she pauses for a second, to regain control of her voice, but there’s no point in only telling half the story. “I think that’s when I knew I loved her.” She swallows past the lump in her throat and pushes the feelings away. “When I went back Anya thought I’d run away. I wouldn’t have been the first second to do so.”

“Did you get in trouble?” Clarke asks, when Lexa trails off, lost in the memory of Costia’s smile and how gentle she’d been with her injuries.

It takes her a moment to pull back from the rush of feelings, and she wraps her arm around herself, her hand pressing into her stomach.

“Anya spent half the year trying to work out where I kept disappearing to when she dismissed me from my training. She found us one night, when I was helping Costia clean up her parents’ stall at the end of the day. It was the first night Costia kissed me.” She laughs, only the humour is missing. “I was surprised, as though every moment we shared hadn’t been building to it.”

She looks at Clarke and sees the flush on her cheeks, and knows she’s remembering the night before the battle as well. She has to look away before she can go on.

“Anya saw us, but she wasn’t angry. It wasn’t forbidden to have relationships. But I think she suspected then that I might be put through the tests when a new Commander was called to lead our people.” She glances sideways, and finds Clarke looking back at her, her face hard to read in the dark. “She told me that love was weakness, and that if I cared about Costia I shouldn’t see her again. I think she was trying to warn me, that people would try to hurt her to hurt me but I was young and didn’t understand.”

“You were in love,” Clarke says, “that’s hard to give up.”

She wonders if Clarke is just talking about the past.

“I kept seeing her, when I could. Anya knew, but she did nothing to stop me. We stayed in the city until the winter, and then we left so I could learn to survive in harsher conditions. I think Anya thought that would be the end of it but I promised Costia I would come back to her when I could. A year and a half later I was the Commander and I did.”

There’s more to the story, happy stolen moments in the woods when Costia taught her how to fish and swim in the rivers and Lexa showed her the hidden places left behind from a time before the bombs and spent hours mapping Costia’s body with her fingers. The memories have been locked away inside her for so long she’s almost forgotten about them, and as much as she wants to, she won’t share them with Clarke.

“I was nineteen when the Azgeda took her, and I learnt what Anya had meant all those years before.”

“I’m so sorry, Lexa,” Clarke murmurs, so quiet Lexa almost doesn’t hear her.

She looks at nothing as she remembers. “Anya held me when I cried and talked me down from a war I was too young to know I wouldn’t be able to end. She marched by my side when I went to negotiate peace and bring the Ice Nation into the Coalition.”

Clarke’s arm slides around her back slowly, like she isn’t sure if Lexa wants the comfort. Lexa doesn’t move, and after a second Clarke’s fingers settle against the small of her back.

“I nearly lost myself, Clarke. Anya made sure I didn’t.”

She feels Clarke nod against her and forces herself to go on.

“I’m telling you this because I need you to understand.” She pulls away from her so she can look at her properly, and feels the loss of Clarke’s warmth against her side. Her fingers itch with the need to touch Clarke’s skin and she pressed her hands together in her lap instead.

“I spent every second blaming myself for what happened to Costia, and I spent every day after the Mountain thinking I’d killed you too. What happened to you there was my fault—” she ignores the way Clarke starts to shake her head, and keeps talking so she can’t interrupt. “Your mother thinks my people betrayed her, and the skaikru alliance was always held together by you. I want to come with you to the Mountain, Clarke.”

She manages not to turn it into a question, but only just.

“This isn’t your fight,” Clarke says quickly.

“Your fights are mine,” she says softly, glancing at her again. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

Clarke looks like she doesn’t know what to say.

“And besides, staying here without you is not... “ she trails off, unable to make herself say the words out loud.

“I know,” Clarke sighs, and lowers her head to rest against Lexa’s shoulder.

Lexa can’t think of anything else to say, and they stay there so long the sun starts to come up, the light glinting off the water. Lexa feels the weight of Clarke, warm and solid all down her side, her right hand cradled between both of Lexa’s, her left wrapped around Lexa’s back, and wishes they never had to move again.

She knows it isn’t that simple.

“When do we leave,” she asks, rubbing her thumb against a new scar on the back of Clarke’s hand and trying not to think about who put it there.

“Not yet,” Clarke says, curling her fingers around Lexa’s like she’s trying to anchor her down, and Lexa knows Clarke purposefully misunderstood, but she still can’t bring herself to ask again.

//

She finds Indra sparring with Octavia, and stands there until they notice her and take a break, Octavia bending over immediately, her hands braced against her knees as she tries to get her breath back.

Indra breathes evenly and examines Lexa’s face.

“You are leaving with the skaikru,” she says, and Lexa glances at Octavia, wondering how much she’s told her.

Lexa nods, “I will make peace, and see that it lasts.”

Indra stares at her for a long moment, and Lexa wishes she’d taken the time to cloak her eyes in paint and strap the armor to her body before she came here. She feels like Indra can see too much of her without it.

“I need you to look after our people while I am gone,” she says, and offers her a sad smile. “You will do better than me.”

Indra shakes her head, “No, Heda,” she says, and there’s a softness in her eyes Lexa hasn’t seen before. Indra holds her arm out, and Lexa grips it, her hand sliding around Indra’s wrist. Indra doesn’t move to let go. “But I will keep them out of trouble until you get back.”

Lexa is the one who moves forward so she can pull Indra into a one-armed hug, ignoring the look of surprise on Octavia’s face. Their sword hands are still clasped between them, but after a moment Indra brings her other hand up to press flat against Lexa’s back.

It’s the first time she’s ever hugged her, and she tries not to think about how it might be the last.

“May we meet again,” Indra says thickly when Lexa pulls back, and Octavia’s eyes go even wider.

Lexa brings her left hand up to cup the back of Indra’s sword hand for a second, before she steps back and lets go with her right. She clenches her jaw as she turns to Octavia, counting her breaths until she’s sure her voice will come out sounding the way she wants it to.

“I’m counting on you to look after her,” she says, and hears Indra scoff behind her.

Octavia nods, her jaw tight. “Me too,” she says steadily, holding her gaze, and Lexa nods and offers her her hand.

“I will,” Lexa promises. “Clarke has nothing to fear with me.”

They shake like warriors do, Octavia’s hand warm around her arm, before Lexa turns and walks away.

//

Cedrik is waiting for her when she gets back to her room, leaning against the wall opposite the door with a hard expression on his face. It’s the first time he’s ever looked at her like that, and she comes to a stop in surprise.

“Were you going to tell me or were you just going to leave?” he says, anger clear in his voice. “You can’t go marching into the Mountain without anyone to protect you. You don’t know that the skaikru left in the Mountain aren’t going to—”

She lifts her hand, and he cuts off at once and there’s a small part of her that wants to laugh at the look on his face, like he’s offended that even now he will still follow her orders. “I know, Cedrik. If you let me speak you would know that you were coming with us.” Her voice doesn’t come out as sharp as she means it to, and she sees him deflate, all the anger leaving him in an instant.

“Oh,” he says and then seems to remember who he’s talking to. His back straightens guiltily as he says, “Mochof, Heda.”

It’s not funny, but she has to fight the desire to laugh.

“Who else would provide such outstanding protection, Cedrik?” A smile twists her mouth despite her attempts to hide it, and she watches his expression soften.

“Mockery is not the product of a strong mind, Heda,” he says, and she shakes her head, recognizing Gustus’ words. She forgets, sometimes, that he helped to raise the both of them.

He turns to leave, and she takes a breath before she calls after him, “Cedrik?” He stops but doesn’t turn round. “Where we go, you go.” She doesn’t know how else to tell him that the thought of leaving him here is worse than letting Clarke leave without her.

When he says, “Yes, Heda,” she can hear the smile in his voice.

//

She and Cedrik are the first ones at the gates, and they stand silently as they watch the sun rise, waiting for the stablehands to bring them the horses and supplies. Nerves churn in the pit of her stomach, and the unfamiliar weight of her armor around her body chafes. She tugs at the straps as she tries to get it to sit right against her skin

Cedrik puts a comforting hand on her shoulder as he steps away to see to the horses.

People arrive in little groups, Indra, Lincoln and Octavia first, silently nodding at Lexa in turn as they wait, followed by Monty and Raven, both of them looking like they’re fighting back tears. Raven leans on Monty like the metal around her leg isn’t working to hold her up, and Lexa looks away as Raven wipes a hand against her eyes furiously, trying to get rid of the tears.

People from the city have started to gather by the gates when Clarke, Bellamy and Monroe arrive, all three dressed for travel and carrying bags on their shoulders. Cedrik moves to take them from them, so he can transfer their belongings into the horses’ packs.

“Clarke,” Lexa says with a nod, as their eyes meet.

“Lexa,” Clarke murmurs, pulling something from her pack before she hands it off to Cedrik.

It’s a thick stack of papers and Lexa knows what it is before Clarke begins to speak.

“Before we came here, on the Ark, I would have been a doctor, like my mother.” Clarke’s voice is loud enough to be heard by everyone, and she holds the papers out to Lexa, like a gift. “This is everything I remember.” She waits for Lexa to take it from her before she goes on, half turning so she’s addressing the crowd as well as Lexa. “I want this alliance to work. Consider this a gift, to prove I mean it.”

“Mochof, Clarke kom skaikru,” she says, glancing down at the top piece of paper. “Osir hukop gon ste yuj.”

Octavia whispers what the words mean to Clarke, and Clarke nods, raising her voice so the people can hear her. “I hope so, Commander.”

Clarke turns away to say goodbye to her friends and Lexa tries not to watch the way she clutches Raven close, whispering things into her hair, and then pulls Monty in as well and buries her face between them.

Clarke looks like she’s not sure she’ll ever see them again, and Lexa turns to hand the medical book to Indra just so she doesn’t have to think about what that means about where they’re going.

Bellamy and Octavia hold each other for a long time before Octavia steps away, the warpaint over her eyes streaking down her skin with each tear she sheds. She falls into Clarke’s arms and buries her face in Clarke’s neck, and when she pulls back there’s a black smudge on Clarke’s skin.

Lexa wishes she could wipe it away.

“May we meet again,” Octavia says thickly, to both of them, and then turns to press herself into Lincoln’s side, his arm sliding around her shoulders comfortingly.

He nods at Lexa over Octavia’s head and Lexa hardens her heart as she turns away from her people, and climbs up on her horse. “When you are ready, Clarke,” she says, as Bellamy and Monroe mount beside her.

Clarke stands there for one last long moment, looking at her friends like she’s trying to fix their faces into her memory, before she turns to mount the horse Cedrik holds for her and nods to Lexa.

“Let’s go,” she says, and Lexa nudges her horse into motion before she can change her mind.

//

They make for a grim party, all of them riding in silence across the open spaces around Polis, eating their lunches in the saddle so they can keep moving, only stopping to give the horses short breaks and let them drink.

They reach the edge of the wood as the sun is starting to set, and Bellamy and Monroe exchange a glance when Lexa and Cedrik dismount from their horses.

“Why are you stopping?” Bellamy asks, glancing over at Clarke. “We could get further into the wood if we—”

“We cannot ride through the woods in the dark. The horses could break a leg,” Cedrik says, as he starts to pull the tents from the packs.

Bellamy starts to open his mouth, but Clarke says his name sharply and he shuts it again. “If they say it’s too dangerous then it’s too dangerous,” she says, climbing down and moving to take some of the supplies from Cedrik. “We’ll be there soon enough, Bellamy,” she sounds tired, and Lexa takes the tent from her, her fingers brushing the back of Clarke’s hand.

Clarke smiles at her, just for a second, and it’s the first time all day that the constant unease she feels in the pit of her stomach has disappeared.

//

She’s been lying on her bedroll, staring up at the canvas ceiling of her tent for far too long when the flap over the door rustles and Clarke steps in.

Lexa pushes herself up on her elbows to watch as Clarke comes closer, a bundle of blankets tucked under her arm as she shifts on her feet.

“Is something wrong?” Lexa asks, concern flooding through her as she watches a tremor go through Clarke’s free hand.

“I— I didn’t want to be alone,” Clarke’s voice is quiet, but there’s something in it that makes Lexa’s chest ache.

Clarke isn’t that far away from her, and Lexa reaches to tug the blankets from under her arm before she can think better of it. She rolls them out next to her and then swallows as she looks back up at Clarke.

“Okay.” She doesn’t mean it to, but it comes out like a question, the word hitching up at the end.

It seems to take Clarke a long time to answer it.

“Okay,” Clarke whispers, as she sinks down to her knees next to her.

Lexa looks away when Clarke shrugs out of her coat, trying to ignore the goosebumps that appear on Clarke’s arms when they meet the air. Clarke tosses the coat away, and after a second her boots follow, until Clarke is sitting next to her and tucking her bare feet under the blanket as she settles on to her back.

She exhales shakily and hopes Clarke doesn’t notice as she let’s herself fall back against the floor.

She’s so close Lexa could reach out and touch her, and she fights the urge to roll on to her side so Clarke can’t see her face, just in case her expression is giving her away.

They’re both on their backs, but she sees Clarke turn her head to look at her in her peripheral vision and then feels Clarke’s hand warm against her arm.

“Mochof,” Clarke whispers, but Lexa has no idea what she’s thanking her for.

//

She wakes up in the night with Clarke’s face pressed into her neck, one of Clarke’s arms looped around her stomach loosely, and their feet tangled together at the bottom of the blankets, and is half convinced she’s dreaming, until she tries to move her arm and realizes Clarke is lying on it.

She holds her breath as she tries to move it, hoping Clarke doesn’t wake up.

She’s not brave enough to admit how much she wants this with Clarke looking at her, and she shifts her weight until she can wrap her arm around Clarke’s shoulders loosely, her fingers settling against the cuff of Clarke’s shirt.

Clarke makes a soft, contented noise in the back of her throat and Lexa bites at her lip as the feelings threaten to overwhelm her, relief and happiness and something warm and soft, lurking in her chest.

She stays awake long into the night, looking for as long as she dares, trying to fix the feeling of Clarke wrapped around her into her memory.

She’s not sure how much longer it can last.

//

She wakes before Clarke does in the morning, and only hesitates for a moment before she eases her arm out from underneath her, sliding out from under the blankets carefully. She draws her knees up towards her chest and hunches over, wiping her hand over her face to try and wake herself up.

She looks back at where Clarke is shifting in her sleep, curling on to her side as one hand reaches into the space Lexa has left behind.

It makes the ache come back to her chest, and she swallows past the dryness in her throat and climbs to her feet, hovering in the doorway for a second before she pushes through the canvas.

//

They all help to pack up the camp, and she tries to ignore the way Clarke glances at her as they work, a mixture of confusion and worry on her face. Lexa holds her horse for her when Clarke climbs into the saddle, and brushes her knuckles against Clarke’s boot where it rests in the stirrup before she turns away, and hopes Clarke will understand.

It’s harder to pretend you can have the things you want in the woods.

Their horses move more slowly through the woods than they did on the open plains around Polis, and they travel closer together, aware that there might be threats here they didn’t face the day before.

Monroe and Cedrik stand watch when they take a break to eat, and eat their own rations in the saddle once they’re moving again, and she catches Bellamy’s hand on his gun more than once while they ride on through the trees.

She wonders if the others feel as nervous as she does, and she catches Clarke’s eye and sees the worry lurking there, and knows she isn’t alone.

//

When they make camp for the night Clarke unties her bedroll from her saddle and walks towards Lexa’s tent like it’s her own, ignoring the way Bellamy and Monroe are looking at her as she hesitates in the doorway and glances back over her shoulder at Lexa.

Lexa can only make herself nod her head once, more of a jerk than anything else, but Clarke sees it.

Lexa tries to ignore the warmth that floods her stomach when she sees the hint of a smile on Clarke’s face before she turns to duck inside.

//

She sits by the campfire until the sun sets, staring into the flames.

She thinks about sleeping out here more than once, and tells herself it’ll be easier to lose something if she doesn’t try to hold on to it so tightly.

She remembers the way Clarke felt in her arms the night before and climbs to her feet.

Clarke is still awake when she pushes through the canvas, sitting cross legged on the blankets on the floor with a notebook in her lap and piece of charcoal in her hand.

She looks up immediately and sucks in a shaky breath. “I wasn’t sure you were coming.”

“I’m here now,” Lexa says, just because she can’t think of anything else to say.

Her hands shake when she tries to undo the straps of her armor and Clarke climbs to her feet to help, her fingers dancing over the buckles. Lexa tries not to think about them moving over her skin.

It doesn’t take long until they’re both standing there staring at each other in their shirts and pants, Clarke so close Lexa can feel her breath against her skin. She wants to close the space between them and kiss her, wants to cup Clarke’s face in her hands and get lost in her, but she swallows and takes a step back.

She feels like a coward when she says, “We should sleep. We’ll reach the dropship in the morning, and the Mountain by nightfall.”

She doesn’t wait for Clarke to reply as she settles on the floor and pulls her boots off, pulling the knife from her belt and putting it within reach next to her. Clarke watches silently and then huffs out a breath.

“We don’t have much time left,” she says from where she stands, and then moves closer. “And I don’t want to spend the last of it like this.”

Clarke drops to her knees next to her, and then she’s dipping her head until they’re kissing, her hand settling under Lexa’s jaw so she can tilt her head up to meet her. Clarke’s mouth opens against hers, and there’s something hot and urgent in her kisses that Lexa gives in to, her tongue brushing against Clarke’s bottom lip as she sucks it into her mouth.

Her hands find their way into Clarke’s hair as Clarke moves until she has one knee either side of Lexa’s legs, her weight settling above her as the kiss deepens.

She’s still afraid of how much she wants this, of how Clarke’s fingers brushing against her skin under her shirt makes her shudder, and how she whimpers when Clarke sucks at her collarbone and presses kisses against her neck.

She almost forgets to hold herself up as Clarke’s hands move higher under her shirt, and Clarke moves one of them to press against Lexa’s back and pull them closer together.

It moves up until her fingers are brushing Lexa’s shoulder blades.

It takes her a second to realize Clarke has pulled away from her, and she breathes hard as Clarke scrambles off of her lap, confusion on her face.

“No, Clarke, that’s not—”

She tries to turn away, but Clarke has already managed to get behind her and slide her shirt up to expose the top of her back, and she gasps when she sees the marks there, bringing her hand up to rub over them.

Lexa tries not to shiver.

“Lexa, what are— these are new,” Clarke stammers.

The way her fingers brush Lexa’s skin make it hard to think, and she presses her lips together, trying to erase the feel of Clarke’s mouth against hers.

“They’re just scars, Clarke,” she says eventually, looking away from the flush on Clarke’s cheeks and her messy hair from where Lexa’s fingers have been tangled in it. She has to fight to get her breathing back under control. “We both have them.”

“Not like this.” Clarke is silent for a second before she says, “Grounders get marks on their shoulders for kills.”

It’s not a question so Lexa doesn’t answer it.

“When did you kill this many people at once?”

Lexa just turns to look at her, because Clarke knows the answer.

She hears Clarke swallow in the silence between them. “Which one’s mine?” she asks eventually, her voice small in the darkness.

Lexa’s jaw trembles for a moment before she answers. “You don’t have one. I didn’t want to believe you were dead.”

“Oh Lexa,” Clarke says on an exhale, dipping her head until her mouth rests against the top of Lexa’s spine. Lexa feels Clarke breathe against her skin, and after a second, she presses a long kiss there, her mouth warm and soft against Lexa’s skin.

“They look like a constellation,” Clarke mumbles without moving, and something trembles in her voice.

She tries to pull away but Clarke doesn’t let her. She slides an arm around Lexa’s stomach and holds her closer, her other hand still flat against the scars on Lexa’s back as her legs move so they’re either side of Lexa’s hips.

Clarke fills her senses, and she stops fighting, relaxing back into her with a sigh. “They are what they are, Clarke.”

They sit there long into the night, their bodies moving together as they breathe in and out, neither of them finding anything else to say.

//

They reach the dropship early the next morning, and Lexa tries to look away from the ashes of her people, clenching her jaw as she remembers the war they thought they were fighting, before the one against the Mountain became too big to ignore.

Clarke doesn’t look at her as she makes her way into the ship, but Cedrik comes to a stop and stares, and Lexa sees him take a deep breathe before he can move again, leading the horses over to one of the walls and tying their reins to the posts.

Bellamy watches him suspiciously. “Won’t we need those again in a minute?”

Cedrik glances at Lexa but says nothing, and Lexa wonders why Clarke hasn’t told him.

“Clarke and I are continuing alone,” she says, wrapping her hand around around the hilt of her sword. “You will stay here and wait for us to return.”

Bellamy huffs out a laugh and tightens his grip on his gun, “No freaking way.” He steps towards her angrily, and her hand tightens around her weapon. “I don’t know what Clarke told you but our people weren’t exactly friendly when we left. And if they are attacking people in the woods what do you think they’ll do to you without people watching your back?”

She just looks at him until he throws his hands up and turns away, pacing a circle around the camp. She tries not to see the bones he walks through.

“Has Clarke agreed to this?” he asks. “Or was this your genius idea?”

“It was mine,” Clarke says, stepping out of the ship. “My mother won’t attack me, Bellamy. You know that. We’ll stand a better chance of getting close to them. Two of us won’t be as much of a threat.”

He shakes his head, “That doesn’t make any sense. You need backup.”

Clarke’s eyes flick over to Lexa before she looks back to Bellamy. “I’ve got it. We know how to move through the woods. They won’t see us coming.” She moves closer to pull him into a hug, and Lexa watches him resist for a moment before he gives in, his arms coming up to wrap around Clarke’s back tightly.

“If we’re not back or don’t send word within three days, I want you to go back to Polis and live a long and happy life, do you hear me?” she says, the words muffled slightly by his shoulder.

He nods when she pulls back, blinking hard against the tears Lexa can see in his eyes. “May we meet again,” he says hoarsely, and Clarke nods and echoes the words as she steps away.

She turns to follow Clarke when she moves towards where Cedrik is redistributing the packs of supplies, but Bellamy takes a step towards her and says, “Commander,” and she’s so surprised that he used her title instead of her name that she turns around before she can stop herself.

He opens his mouth but no words come out, and after a moment he holds his hand out, waiting for her to shake it.

“Be careful,” he says, when she slides her hand into his, shaking the way the skaikru do, and she nods once to show she heard.

“May we meet again,” she says, and returns the grim smile he offers her as he lets go of her hand.

Cedrik has Clarke in a hug when she reaches them, Clarke’s eyes closed tightly as she presses her face into his shoulder. “Thank you,” she murmurs against his armor, and Lexa wonders what she’s thanking him for.

“It was an honor to protect you, Clarke of the sky people,” he says into her hair, his eyes finding Lexa’s over the top of Clarke’s head.

Clarke wipes tears from her eyes when she steps away from him, and Lexa clenches her jaw as she looks at him, not sure what to say.

The longer this goes on, the part of her that thinks they’ll come back from it gets smaller, and she doesn’t know how to say what she’s feeling, or what he’s come to mean to her.

She doesn’t want to say goodbye.

In the end she just walks into his arms, and he holds her tightly as she whispers, “Mochof,” and hopes it’s enough.

//

They make their way towards Camp Jaha on foot, hardly making a sound as they move through the trees.

The pack Lexa carries is heavy on her shoulders, and she keeps her hand on her sword as she walks, her eyes scanning the forest for danger.

They meet no one, but it doesn’t lessen the anxiety in the pit of her stomach.

They reach the edge of the trees as night is starting to fall, and they crouch in the bushes and watch the guards patrolling the camp across the clearing, Clarke whispering the names of people she recognizes and pointing out the Mountain Men who breathe the air as though they’ve spent their whole lives doing it.

They watch one of them laugh and say something to another guard, and Lexa feels Clarke tense next to her in the darkness.

“Come on,” she says, putting a steadying hand on Clarke’s arm. “They might mistake us for someone else in the dark.”

Lexa leads them back from the clearing, retracing steps she hasn’t taken for a long time until she finds the old ruin, half buried in the forest floor. She pulls the old metal door open with a grunt where it’s nearly rusted shut, and gestures for Clarke to go inside.

“This used to be an old scouting station, where my people left supplies when they were watching the Mountain. The acid fog used to reach here, and it fell out of use.”

“It’s an old… house?” Clarke asks, as she climbs the steps inside and examines the bed set up in the corner, then turns to look at the neat pile of wood by what’s clearly a fireplace, a couple of pots resting next to it.

Lexa shrugs, dropping her pack by her feet, “Maybe, but it’s this now. And we’ll be safe here tonight.”

Clarke nods, and shrugs out of her coat, throwing it over the back of one of the chairs as she sits down on the edge of the bed. “Just for tonight,” she says.

It sounds like an invitation, and Lexa tries not to let Clarke see where her fingers fumble with the buckles on her armor again, her sword falling from her hands with a clatter. She feels like a child, and she takes a deep breath to try and steady herself.

She turns to find Clarke watching her, and tries not to show her embarrassment.

“Come here,” Clarke murmurs, and Lexa does.

There’s no point in pretending any more.

Clarke’s hands find her hips and guide her down to the bed, and she turns to lean into Lexa as she kisses her. Clarke’s mouth is soft and warm against hers, and she loses herself in the feel of Clarke against her, trying not to think about what they have to do tomorrow.

She tries not to think at all, just kisses Clarke back and treasures the feel of Clarke’s fingers against her skin.  

Their feet tangle together, and Lexa reaches down blindly for her laces, trying to get her boots off. Clarke laughs into her mouth and pulls back to help, and their shoes land in a heap as they kick them off together.

They stop for a moment, and Lexa lifts her hand up to cup Clarke’s cheek as they both breathe hard, their eyes skipping over each other’s face.

“I haven’t done this since Costia,” she says, and sees Clarke’s eyes soften.

“I’ve never— with a girl,” she says after a moment, “at least, not like this,” and Lexa nods in understanding as she leans forward to kiss her slowly, the same way she had the night before the battle.

“We don’t have to rush, Clarke,” she murmurs against her lips, “We’ve got time.”

They both know it’s a lie, but she feels Clarke relax into her, her whole body curling into the contact, and knows Clarke wants to believe it as much as she does.

She shivers as Clarke’s hands go under her shirt and slide up, tugging the fabric with her, until Clarke breaks the contact just long enough to pull it up and over her head, glancing down just once before she closes the gap between them and kisses Lexa again.

Clarke’s fingers explore her body softly, lingering against the skin each time they find a scar, until they move high enough to press against the burn mark over her heart. Clarke pulls back to look at it, leaning down to kiss the twisted skin, before glancing back up to find Lexa’s eyes.

She doesn’t say anything, but she reaches to tug her own shirt over her head, and the necklace she wears falls out and swings between them. When Lexa closes the gap between them she can feel the pendant cold against the scar on her chest as it gets trapped against her skin.

Clarke is the one who presses Lexa backwards, until she’s lying on the bed with Clarke half on top of her, and she’s the one who moves her hands down to tug at Lexa’s belt, trying to get her pants off. Lexa is happy to go where Clarke leads her, lifting her hips so Clarke can remove her pants, before she lies back and watches Clarke stand so she can step out of her own.

She knew Clarke was beautiful, but she can’t keep her eyes from sweeping up her body as she stands in front of her, and Clarke huffs out a self-conscious laugh as Lexa reaches for her hands and pulls her back towards her, sliding her fingers into the gaps between Clarke’s as she comes closer.

She traces a hand up Clarke’s side, and Clarke shivers as she looks down at her.

“Come here,” Lexa says, and Clarke does.

Clarke’s skin is warm everywhere it touches hers, and she moves until she has one leg either side of Lexa’s and one arm around Lexa’s back, holding her tight against her. Lexa rolls her hips under her and hears Clarke groan into the next kiss.

She tries to go slowly, but the more she kisses Clarke the harder it gets, and she pulls back to suck at Clarke’s collarbone, pressing her lips everywhere she can reach, just to try and stop herself from moving her hands lower.

She rests them on Clarke’s thighs and tries to ignore Clarke’s breathy moans as she rocks against her.

She’s never been very good at self-control.

“Please, Lexa,” Clarke whispers against her neck, and she captures Clarke’s lips in a long kiss as she finally lets her hand move lower.

Clarke is so wet she gasps in surprise, her fingers finding slick heat as they start to move and Clarke’s breathing gets more ragged in her ear.

She moves to press her forehead against Clarke’s, finding her eyes as she wraps her free arm around Clarke’s back to hold them together. Clarke’s hips rock against her, and it’s all she can do to hold them up.

Clarke’s skin is flushed across her chest when she leans back a little, biting at her lip. “I want—” she swallows a moan and lets her head fall forward to Lexa’s shoulder, her teeth brushing Lexa’s skin as the breath hitches in the back of her throat.

Something turns over low in Lexa’s stomach, as she realizes what Clarke wants.

Clarke’s body opens to her as she slides her fingers inside, and Clarke rolls her hips more frantically, her hands pressing harder against Lexa’s back. Clarke arches up into her, her hands moving to tangle in Lexa’s hair and press her closer, and Lexa tries to lock every gasp and murmur Clarke makes in to her memory, just in case it’s the last time she hears them.

She hopes it won’t be.

Clarke comes with a shuddering gasp, her hips jerking as she holds on to Lexa tightly, Lexa’s face buried in her neck as she tries to hide how close she is to following Clarke over the edge, just from the feel of Clarke’s body tightening around her.

“Ai hod yu in.” The words slip out against Clarke’s skin before she can stop them, and she feels Clarke still above her.

Clarke pulls back to look at her, brushing some of the hair away from Lexa’s eyes. Clarke’s fingers against her cheek are the only thing that stops her from looking away.  “What does that mean?”

“You know, Clarke,” she says softly.

Clarke breathes out shakily and ducks her forehead until it’s resting against hers, closing her eyes as she nods.

She doesn’t need to hear Clarke return the words, because she feels it when Clarke kisses her, urgent and clumsy as she presses her back into the bed. She feels it when Clarke licks a trail down her body and settles between her legs, and when she glances up at her before she ducks her head.

She feels it when Clarke laughs against her as she curses shakily in trigedasleng, and when she finds her release, Clarke’s fingers buried inside her as her tongue presses against her.

She doesn’t need to hear the words, but Clarke comes to settle against her side, one leg thrown over Lexa’s hips as she presses a kiss to the side of Lexa’s jaw.

“I love you too,” she whispers, and Lexa turns her head to kiss her slowly, the same way she had before the battle, and never wants this night to end.

//

When she wakes up in the morning, Clarke is gone.

She reaches for the torn off piece of paper Clarke has left in the space next to her and unfolds it, watching Clarke’s necklace fall out into her lap. She swallows as her eyes scan the page, not wanting to believe what she sees.

The note says, “Tell the others I’m sorry,” in shaky charcoal lines, and then underneath, “May we meet again.”

Lexa’s hand tightens around the pendant as she forces herself to breathe, screwing the paper up in her hand and then trying to smooth it out quickly so she can stare at the words again.

She should have known Clarke would do this, and that last night was something more than their last chance to have the thing they’d both wanted for so long.

Clarke was saying goodbye.

She swipes her hand against her wet eyes quickly, and only lets herself sit there for a few minutes before she reaches for her clothes and starts to tug them on.

Clarke can’t have gotten that far ahead of her.

//

Her armor hangs off her shoulder as she runs towards Camp Jaha, trying to be silent in case there are enemies lurking nearby but failing spectacularly.

She grips the hilt of her sword as she moves, and pities anyone who would try to stop her.

Clarke is halfway across the clearing when she bursts through the trees, and she sucks in a lungful of air as she sees the way Clarke’s hands are raised over her head in surrender as guards rush towards her, their guns aiming at her.

“Clarke,” she shouts, not caring that it will give her away. She draws her sword and starts to run, Clarke’s necklace swinging against her armor with each step she takes

Clarke turns to see her coming, her mouth falling open in surprise as an angry expression crosses her face.

Lexa wants to laugh, but.

More guards appear, shouting at her to stop, but she ignores them and looks only at Clarke, coming to a stop as she reaches her side.

“You should have stayed,” Clarke says, as the guards surround them.

Lexa licks her lips as she moves to stand back to back with Clarke, lifting her sword defensively as she counts the guards around them. She eyes their rifles and doesn’t like their chances.

“I’m exactly where I should be, Clarke,” she says, and feels Clarke reach backwards to grip her hand for a moment, before she pulls her gun from its holster and holds it loosely by her side.

“Identify yourself,” one of the guards snaps, his eyes lingering on Lexa’s sword, and Clarke steps in front of him, blocking his view.

“You know who I am,” she says, but Lexa sees the way her knuckles whiten as they grip the handle of her gun. “I want to talk to my mother.”

The guard looks past her, and Lexa stares back coldly. “What about her?”

“The Commander is my ally. Our business here is not for you to know.”

Lexa knows it was the wrong thing to say before Clarke does, and she raises her sword and snarls as one of the guards circles around behind her.

“Give us your weapons,” the guard says, and Clarke just laughs.

“Give me yours,” Clarke says, and Lexa can’t keep the wild grin of her face.

The guard’s face darkens as he looks at Clarke. “We don’t take orders from you.”

No one moves, and then Clarke brings her gun up to point at him, and Lexa steps forward to defend her right side against the two guards that bring their guns up to point at Clarke.

She’s so busy staring at Clarke and the guards that she doesn’t realize they’re not alone until it’s too late.

A sword bursts through the chest of one of the guards to her left, and he starts to fall to the ground as blood gurgles from his lips. She watches the sword slice through the air again, and sees another guard fall.

“Run,” Cedrik says, as he dodges under the rifle the nearest guard swings at him and punches the guard in the face. “Please.”

Clarke is frozen in shock next to her, her gun pointing at nothing, and Lexa takes a step forward and kicks one of the men away from her, bringing her sword up to fight the others off.

“This wasn’t supposed to happen,” she thinks she hears Clarke whisper, as she tries to tug at her arm.

She scans the guards left in front of them, and swallows. If they’re leaving they need to go now.

“Clarke, please,” she says, and slices through the leg of the nearest guard. Lexa watches her drop her rifle and fall to her knees. She turns and slashes at the guards behind them, grinning as they jump back.

She knows they’re losing the element of surprise, and she sees the remaining guards start to recover, bringing their guns up to point at them.

She realizes what’s going to happen a second before it does, and starts to run.

But she isn’t fast enough to outrun a bullet.

“No,” Clarke says, her voice getting lost in the sound of gunfire, “don’t shoot—”

Lexa skids to a stop, watching Cedrik stagger back as blood seeps out from under his armor. She presses her free hand against her mouth and tries to stop the sob that bubbles up from her throat.

If she’d seen the guard a second before, she could have reached him and pushed him out of the way.

“Heda…” he murmurs, as the sword falls from his hand.

She manages to catch him as he falls, her legs crumpling underneath her as his weight hits her. He’s so much bigger than her, and she pulls him closer, trying to press her hands into the wounds to stop the blood.

“You should have run, Lexa,” he says, coughing as blood bubbles on his lips. “Both of you.”

She hears another gunshot and looks up from where the light is leaving Cedrik’s eyes to see the guard who shot him fall, a bullet hole in his head.

Tears stream down Clarke’s face as she lowers her gun.

She sees the men coming for Clarke and tries to stagger to her feet but something hits the back of her head with a sickening crack, and the pain hits her all at once, causing her to sway on her knees.

She pitches forward over Cedrik’s lifeless body, and the last thing she sees before everything goes black is Clarke’s tear-stained face.

//

It can’t be much later when she wakes up, suspended between two guards, her feet dragging along the floor of the Ark as they carry her inside. She struggles and one of them squeezes her arm hard until she stops, twisting it behind her back until she thinks her shoulder might pop out of the socket.

“Let her go,” Clarke is demanding from somewhere behind her, but when Lexa turns her head, she sees Clarke’s gun tucked into the belt of one of the guards who carry her, next to her sword.

“The grounders are our allies, Lexa is their Commander, do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

Lexa thinks they have a pretty good idea.

Some distant part of her mind thinks that at least she won’t die in the Mountain, like so many of her people before her.

She scrambles to her feet and runs for the door when they throw her in the cell, but one of the guards hits a button and it slides shut quickly, before she can get through it. She hits the glass instead and snarls at the guards on the other side.

“Clarke,” she shouts as she slams her palms against the door and memorizes the face of the guard who has her sword and smirks back at her.

Her hands are covered in Cedrik’s blood, and she tries not to see how it smears down the glass.

Clarke shoves through the guards and nearly crashes into the cell door, her left hand pressing against the glass until it’s the mirror image of Lexa’s.

Lexa imagines she can feel Clarke’s palm against her skin.

“I’ll get you out,” Clarke says frantically, punching a button on the wall that allows her voice to travel into the cell. “I’ll be back. Don’t worry, I’ll get you out.”

Clarke’s palm turns white as she presses harder, and Lexa nods as she finds Clarke’s eyes.

Clarke isn’t doing a very good job of hiding the panic in them.

“Death is not the end, Clarke,” she says, remembering another day long ago, when they’d stood side by side in a cage. “My spirit will find yours again.”

She remembers Cedrik's sightless eyes staring up at the sky and isn't sure she believes it anymore.

Clarke blinks the tears from her eyes as she shakes her head. “I need your spirit to stay where it is,” she says, only the tight smile on her face doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

Clarke lets go of the button that lets them talk so she can wipe the tears off her face, her other hand still pressed to the glass like she can feel Lexa’s on the other side.

Lexa recognizes the mask of leadership Clarke forces on to her face as she turns back to face the guards.

Clarke’s mouth moves but Lexa doesn’t hear the words, and Lexa watches her follow the guards back down the corridor, clenching her jaw at the way the men grab Clarke’s arm to hurry her along. She presses her hand harder against the glass just to try and stop it from trembling.

She grasps the pendant of Clarke’s necklace tightly in her other hand, so hard it starts to hurt as the metal digs into her skin.

“May we meet again,” she whispers, and tries to believe it.


End file.
